rise up?
I am sooooo going to see the movie "V for Vendetta" when it comes out...apart from the trailers looking really stunning, the tagline "The people should not be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of their people" is quite a hook. Today's San Francisco Chronicle newspaper raved about it, saying that it's skirting (--happily--) dangerously close to being a larger critique on today's governmental policies with visual allusions to both Abu Graib photos, the Holocaust, The Battle of Algiers, A Clockwork Orange, and "1984". I forgive Natalie Portman for participating in the Star Wars Trilogy over this. Going bald and becoming a resister has won brownie points from me. Sometimes I'm shocked that a major film studio would go down this route...amazing. Will report back when I have partaken.
We've been talking about the place of politics within artwork in the sculpture class I teach at CCA, and it's been really interesting. Many of my students are lamenting the effectiveness of addressing politics within their own work as a means for real change, and I've been advocating that they not necessarily place all their eggs in one basket--that it's fine to feel you need to address an "issue" in your artwork, but real change can come faster from direct action. Don't get me wrong, I am a strong advocate for socially-conscious and politally aware work, but I also know that it can wind up becoming a self-circulating dialogue that doesn't necessarily implicate any need for change. I also feel that works that are not overtly known as political can be the most amazing manifestations of both art and critique--look at Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.
art for DVD re-release, The Battle of Algiers
Recently I've been reading a lot of historical texts and documentation on labor movements of the 30s, as well as primary socialist American documents from the 60s. If you're interested, a really great book is "The Cultural Front," which analyzes film, visual art, theater, and music from the heydey of union activism in the 30s, and also adddresses the systematic destruction of government-funded creativity due to the subsequent War #2, Cold War, and Red Scare. It's a great read and a wealth of information. I'm convinced we need to look to history to learn possible answers for today. I get so enraged with the over-hyping of today's society as being "ahistorical" in the sense that since we're in such a fast-forward, globalized world, historical movements don't apply anymmore. I think it's brainwashing folks into not remembering the days in which collective action really made a difference. I mean, good god, the Industrial Revolution was a monumental upheaval, radically changing Western economies, displacing people, and creating major class differences. Today, it's obviously more complex, but still similar, and we have a lot to learn from looking back.
my friend Amy Balkin's poster project in conjunction with her larger effort This Is the Public Domain.
On an interesting observation note, I have been noticing a resurgence in the retro visuals of political protest popping up lately (Russian Constructivist, revolutionary, purposefully hand-made looking silkscreened posters a la 60s handbills, etc). Look at the advertising for V for Vendetta, the recent Napster ads, and at CCA there is a poster campaign for the artist Thomas Hirschhorn sporting some serious retro protest. Whether this is just aping the visuals of the revolution with no real meat behind it, I've become very fond seeing these types of things around, for if anything they make me feel like perhaps out of curiousity people will try to figure out where the style originated from.
Napster's latest ad campaign--revolution or placebo?
There's an art exhibition on the Black Panther Party opening up at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco's local alternative museum space, and I am incredibly curious to see how it resonates within today's audience. This weekend is the Anarchist Book Fair in the city, too.
Does this all mean anything? Is it because I live in San Francisco, home of the self-professed counterculture movement (but alas, short lived and everyone turned into rich yuppies with SUVs) that I am noticing this? Is it wishful thinking on my part? Is there something brewing, or is it just a visual panacaea to lull us into thinking that we are, indeed, thinking about revolution?
Pirkle Jones, "Women, Free Huey Rally, Oakland," 1968, from the Black Panther exhibition
8 Comments:
i am so jealous of your big city life. i always seem to be stuck somewhere where folks are too comfortable and only strike up political debate when it effects how their neighborhood landscaping will look, or when it increases their beer tax. i always feel really isolated and alone with my beliefs and opinions.
and it's funny because i live in a really liberal town right now, and it's a nice alternative to detroit for me. yet it's still disappointing because it's mostly just old hippies you have become yuppies, and they passively use art and bake sales to show their dissatisfaction with our current situation. ugh! it's not enough people.
i think it's good that you're straight with your class about making more of a physical and vocal effort, and not just relying on their art to speak for themselves.
i'm really getting excited about "v for vendeta" too! i only worry that the inclusion of natalie portman will keep everything "safe" and not too controversial? you have to give us a review.
interesting, melissa...i think part of the problem with living in what is a self-professed "liberal" town for me is that people get very complacent with just having their little nick of the woods be looked after. and even calling yourself "liberal" can be an endgame for most folks here--the whole hippies-into-yuppies is the norm in the Bay Area. when it first started happening in the 80s it totally grossed me out and seemed to fly in the face of what the original counterculture movement intended--i mean, good god, weren't these the same people? today my fairly working-class neighborhood has homes going for upwards of $700,000. i get into loathing fits about the Baby Boomer Generation in general--so self-satisfied with themselves, so much talk, etc.
is it just natural that as folks age they get more complacent? will this happen to us--bake sales and hippie/yuppie talk? I sincerely hope not for myself, but it's a complicated matter. i don't want to begrudge folks their own local ideas of community if they want to hold candlelight vigils and grow gardens (productive in a general way).
I've been thinking a lot of the Sam Green documentary "The Weather Underground," (you should see it!) which interviews 30 years later the local "terrorst" organization that was in line with the Black Panther Party in the 70s, bombing government offices in SF. Many of them are questioning their early naivete and violent tactics, but still believe in the importance of what they did.
i sometimes wonder how long i can just sit here and talk. what does it mean to walk the walk?
I agree, "The Weather Underground" was a very interesting documentary. I knew bits and pieces, but it put the whole movement together.
Last week I saw the German film "The Edukators" and I highly recommend it. It speaks directly to the issues you guys raise with growing complacent, and explored the need that younger generations have to change the world. It has the same actor that was in "Goodbye Lenin", another pretty good German film.
See how much I am doing to make a difference as I sit in front of the tv? Geez.
This entry really moved me...
I think so much about social movements, politics, change, in art, in life...
and being here in the UK has really opened my eyes to the complacency, apathy, of both American and British cultures....
what has shocked me the most about being in this country is seeing how the media is much more open and willing to criticize the British and American government...
for example...there were images in the guardian the other day of British soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners...as well as images of Iraqi children that had been hurt by British forces...
and i thought: "this would NEVER be shown back in the states in a mainstream newspaper"...
but...yet, the people are still as apathetic and satisfied with their lives as we are in the states.
I come from California, and although it is an incredibly dilapidated part of California where most people get their information from the Spanish news programs, ..I still feel part of this "liberal" world...
it is just really hard to look outside of your own protective liberal sphere and realize that their are many people who do not feel the same way you do...
you can feel so powerless though...and a lot of it is the government's doing...
but i feel that with my "art" ...with my social activist work...i want to try to cause change in interpersonal relationships...
to me, this is where i can start...where i feel that i can make a difference...
and, i don't know if you read the amazing tri-fold conversations between David Levi-Strauss and Daniel Martinez in the recent Art Forums...but they talk about social change, and how Martinez feels that the classroom is the area that needs to be explored and really used effectively as a means of helping our culture of youth OUT of their apathy...
whenever i feel so bogged down and hopeless with the world's circumstances...i always feel that i get strength from the amazing historical legacies we have been left by different fighters....
the dadaists
the russian constructivist movements
the feminist video artists
the queer movement (with Marlon Riggs as an incredible voice of group cohesion, love, diversification)..
etc...
and as i was talking about with some friends of mine, in America, we ARE going to see a shift...with their being more and more individuals from various cultural backgrounds growing up and becomming the leaders of the country...we will see a shift in priorities for what America stands for....
we can just hope and continue to love and fight...
sorry i've just rambled on...but your article really hit home...
you as well are an inspiration to me...
I always find it interesting how images of revolution (so passionate and powerful) are co-opted for advertising use... especially b/c I feel the companies reaching out to... ME.
Anyway, I came across you through your wonderful anti-factory line (which I always miss out on - sells out so fast!). But also we have similar policits.
oh edgar, you can really make me almost cry, your writing always has such a lovely sense of urgency, historical remembrance, and thoughtfulness. i hope things are well with you in the UK and i know i still owe you a musical gift and more. props out to riggs, martinez, and others like beuys, felix gonzalez-torres, and *yourself* who are making artworks smartly and earnestly. i'm generally a glass-half-full kind of person, but sometimes get to feeling morose about the current creative climate. and then i hear from folks like you and i remember that we're trying to be a part of a lineage of sorts. i always appreciate hearing from you and hope one day our paths will cross! i'm watching your back, hear? :)
kara, for some reason my netflix copy of the edukators has been sitting on top of my TV for *weeks* and i haven't gotten around to watching it! thanks for the added incentive and now i know it must happen ;p
thanks, everyone, for any response you've given me on this post. i sometimes feel i'm casting about, not knowing who's reading and thinking in a similar manner, so it's great to hear from you! it's not all fun and games around here, ya know...
I just saw 'Vendetta' - I thought it was really amazing. I want to go and see it again this week! It kind of makes me think of Phantom of the Opera meets Clockwork Orange meets 1984, and many other "scary government" films. yay!
i'm SO watching v is for vendetta. i didn't even know what it was about until i read your blog! all i knew was that natalie portman shaved her head for it. now i'm totally gonna go see it. wanna see more movies that expose the government. oh, and apparently, there's this new documentary out called "loose change" that talks about the truth about 9-11, if that's something you're interested in. looking forward to a discussion on v is for vendetta!
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