Waltz with Bashir

It took Israeli director Ari Folman four years to create Waltz with Bashir, an unusual autobiographical animated film now in limited engagement across the U.S. that warns of the nightmares that follow in the wake of war. The movie opens with an unsettling vision, a pack of rabid dogs - twenty six to be exact, racing along wet streets under yellowy skies, frothing at the mouth and evidently looking for something to kill. Lushly animated in clashing hues of cobalt and ochre, the apparition is a dream suffered by Boaz Rein Buskila, an Israeli army veteran of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

[ Cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war - the opening sequence of Ari Folman’s, Waltz with Bashir. ]

In the follow-up scene Boaz tells his close friend Ari Folman about the ominous dream and its meaning, it was actually a memory of sorts. During the war on Lebanon, as part of an Israeli infantry unit sent under cover of darkness into Palestinian villages to snatch suspects, Boaz was required to shoot the village dogs with a silenced sniper rifle to prevent their barking and waking the town’s occupants. He remembered each dog - all twenty six of them, their size and shape, how they whimpered when shot, how they died. Now the slaughtered dogs were back, and they were pursuing Boaz in his sleep. He asked his friend Ari if he also had nightmares about his service in Lebanon, but Folman could not remember anything at all about the war, he had no dreams or recollections - he was absolutely blank. Folman’s quest for his lost memories began at that moment, and the rest of the film recounts his struggle to dredge up that life history.

Based on Folman’s real life experiences as a soldier in the Israeli army when it invaded Lebanon in June ‘82, Waltz with Bashir is only the second animated feature film to be produced in Israeli cinematic history - the first was made in 1961. Folman did not use rotoscope techniques in producing his film, rather the animation, directed by Yoni Goodman, was achieved through a combination of Flash and 3-D software with classic hand drawn animation. The feature had a budget of $1.7 million and its entire animation crew was composed of ten individuals.

By contrast, Pixar’s Finding Nemo had a budget of $150 million and a technical crew of over forty animators. Most people have good reason to regard animation as nothing more than kid stuff, but Folman has given us a profoundly serious and complicated film for thinking adults. Waltz with Bashir is not lacking in any respect, in fact it is a devastatingly effective look at the folly and hubris of war. Watching the movie’s online trailer gives evidence of just how powerful Folman’s animated feature is. At a press conference that took place at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where the film premiered, Folman said;

"The basic statement of the film and the understanding of the film is prosaic: wars are useless, completely useless, any war. There are a lot of anti-war movies, but in the eyes of a teenager, the anti-war films miss their goal completely, sometimes you just don't get it right. Because it is animated, I hope that a sixteen year old boy watching 'Waltz With Bashir' in Israel will say, 'I don't want to take any part in this war again.'"

A strangely beautiful sequence from the film gave the movie its name; an Israeli soldier is shown "waltzing" with his machine gun while under fire on a bomb blasted Beirut boulevard - that is to say, he was wildly firing at everything in sight. The scene takes place against a backdrop of street posters extolling Bashir Gemayel - the leader of the Lebanese right-wing Christian Phalangist party. But the film’s title is more than just a metaphor for the insanity and brutality of war. Gemayel was politically aligned with Israel and fanatical about expelling the Palestinians from Lebanon. When Gemayel was assassinated by unknown assailants, Phalangist militia men attacked the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians while the Israeli army looked on. As a 19-year-old soldier, Folman was stationed on the outskirts of Sabra, firing flairs to illuminate the camp at night. He became so racked with guilt over his actions that he blocked his entire wartime experience from memory.

[ Israeli soldier "waltzing" his machine gun in Beirut, Lebanon during the 1982 Israeli invasion of that country. ]

In the finale of Waltz With Bashir, all of Folman’s wartime memories come flooding back to him, as the animation dissolves into truly shocking live-action archival footage showing the aftermath of the killing spree at Sabra and Shatila. The ending is a hammer blow of pure journalistic force. Reuters quoted the director at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, commenting on the final scene;

"I didn't want you as the audience to go out of the theater after watching 'Waltz With Bashir' and think, yes, this is a cool animation film'. These things happened ... thousands of people were killed, kids were killed, women were killed, old people were killed. In order to put the whole film into proportion, those 50 seconds were essential to me."

Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, dubbed "Operation Peace for the Galilee", was launched by Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin. Ostensibly meant to destroy the PLO, the operation killed untold thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, took the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers, and left Lebanon in ruins. Ultimately the war culminated in the unspeakable massacre of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The war’s initial onslaught was followed by an 18-year-long military occupation, but Israel’s military superiority brought it no closer to peace and security; as evidenced by the current fighting in the Gaza strip - the most densely populated area on earth and arguably the largest prison camp in the world.

[ A slain Israeli soldier being transported home from the Lebanese warfront. ]

Waltz with Bashir is filled with disturbing imagery that is both surrealistic and hallucinogenic. One of my favorite moments in the film is of Folman remembering being on leave from the Lebanese front. That particular scene involves the young soldier back home in Israel, feeling displaced and uncomfortable that everyone was "living normally", as if a war was not being fought. Folman listlessly shuffles on a bustling street as crowds blur by him, he becomes immobilized in front of a shop window displaying television sets - all of which are showing a speech by prime minister Begin. The channel is abruptly switched and the TV sets are suddenly broadcasting a performance by John Lydon’s post-Sex Pistols band, Public Image Ltd (Pil) - the grating din being the group’s anti-melody, This Is Not A Love Song.

The unexpected appearance of Pil on that bank of televisions rang true for me (even though the Pil song was released a year after the ‘82 war), and that scene set off an avalanche of personal memories. Widely interpreted as scathing mockery aimed against the music industry’s endless production of saccharine romance tunes, This Is Not A Love Song took on a whole new meaning in Waltz with Bashir. The composition became a poison letter delivered to our modern consumer society - especially as the piece of music worked its way through the war addled mind of a young soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

In November of 1982 Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin was invited to speak at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and in response the "Committee to Oppose the Begin Visit" called for a peaceful demonstration to protest the invasion of Lebanon. At the time a handful of friends and I were active participants in L.A.’s punk rock movement, and we decided to attend the rally to express our outrage over the mass murder at Sabra and Shatila. Thousands showed up at the demonstration, and somehow two of my punk friends and I sailed through the lines of the LAPD riot squad and cordons of Secret Service agents to actually enter the Bonaventure - which was no small feat considering we were the ugliest gang of social deviants you could ever imagine.

Sporting spiky colored hair, ripped and torn bondage clothes covered with hand painted slogans, combat boots, leather jackets, peace buttons, and Arab kaffiya scarves; we miraculously made our way to the top floor of the hotel totally unimpeded by security and stood outside of the main ballroom for a few moments to greet delegates with sneers and generally rude buffoonery. I recall delegates reacting to us as if we were lepers. We soon tired of our antics and left the premises to rejoin the antiwar rabble in the streets, astonished that we had not been arrested. Hundreds of high-powered supporters of Israel were in that ballroom, including the Governor of the State of California, Jerry Brown, and L.A.’s Mayor, Tom Bradley. As fate would have it Begin’s scheduled speech was cancelled due to the death of his wife, but Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Moshe Arens, filled in for the grieving prime minister.

The bloodbath at Sabra and Shatila shocked the international community, and my response to the cataclysm was to create a silkscreen print in 1983 that memorialized the massacres. Based upon a pencil drawing I made in the weeks immediately following the atrocities, my artwork paid homage to the innocents who lost their lives in those wretched camps. I have long felt that my artistic gesture was misconstrued by some, but after viewing Ari Folman’s astonishing film, I feel vindicated and in good company.

In the end an Israeli government commission found the Israeli Defense Forces "indirectly responsible" for the mass executions. Israel’s Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon, was found to bear "personal responsibility" for "not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed." Sharon resigned his Defense Minister position but later became the Prime Minister of Israel in 2001.

[ The fly encrusted eye of a dead horse reflects the silhouette of an Israeli soldier in occupied Beirut. ]

A human tragedy of momentous proportions is again unfolding, this time in the Israel-blockaded Gaza strip. It is a catastrophe that may develop into a wider war if not a regional conflagration. At the time of this writing at least 435 Palestinians have been killed and an estimated 2,000 injured in the massive Israeli bombings of Gaza. Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have been killed by rockets launched into Israel by Hamas militants. The Israeli army launched a ground invasion into Gaza late January 3, using tanks and infantry, a move that will undoubtedly cause civilian casualties to skyrocket.

Without a doubt, George W. Bush has given the Israelis a green light for military action, but supporters of President Barack Obama still expect him, as the candidate of "Hope and Change", to break his silence and make a statement against the Israeli mauling of the Palestinians. Despite his vociferous rhetoric about "winning in Afghanistan" and enthusiastically lobbying for a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, Mr. Obama claims there "can only be one president at a time" as a justification for his remaining mute. As we enter the second week of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Obama remains silent on the matter - evidently he has decided to Waltz with Bashir.

[ As a side note: On Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009, at 1:00 pm, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood will present a free public discussion with Ari Folman as well as the directors of the four other foreign language films nominated for this year’s Golden Globes. Running up to this, from January 7-10, the films up for nomination will screen at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Waltz With Bashir is also currently screening at L.A.’s Laemmle Theatres. ]

Obama: "Cultural Shift from the Top"?

A number of arts advocacy groups across the United States believe that the incoming Obama administration possesses an innovative government plan for the arts. In part this is based upon the fact that the Obama campaign publicly released its "Platform In Support Of The Arts" nearly a year before the national elections. Conversely the McCain campaign made public its arts platform - a four sentence long document - just 33 days before the elections. However, a number of questions are raised by a close reading of the Obama arts platform, not the least of which involves the uncertainty that any of it will actually be implemented. Maintaining the occupation of Iraq and escalating the war in Afghanistan will be costly propositions for the new administration, and coupled with what the incoming President himself has called "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression", it seems unlikely the arts will be anything but a low priority.

The Los Angeles based arts advocacy group, Arts For LA!, represents a good case in point when it comes to overly optimistic Obama supporters. In the organization’s December 9, 2008 newsletter, under the heading of a "Cultural Shift from the Top", it was excitedly noted that; "Last Sunday on Meet the Press, President-elect Obama spoke about his plans to address the country's economic crisis, foreign policy, tax cuts, and his intention to 'open the White House up to inspire innovation and imagination.' He wants to remind people that 'the White House is the people's house.' He also intends to host poets, artists and musicians because 'art, culture, science is the essence of what makes America special.'"

Arts For LA! should be reminded that "The People’s House" is a colloquial term that has long referred to the White House. What is more, the conservative administrations of Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush have all spoken of the White House as "The People’s House", so the designation as used by Mr. Obama does not necessarily indicate a new, groundbreaking stance. While the Bush administration represented the most retrograde policies, it cynically understood the arts as part of state craft. In 2006 the first lady launched the Bush State Department’s, Global Cultural Initiative (GCI), a well financed program of international cultural exchanges backed by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Film Institute, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. GCI is the type of arts program that Mr. Obama may well feel comfortable maintaining and expanding; which would represent yet another instance of outright continuity with the Bush administration.

Tom Brokaw conducted the Meet the Press interview with the President-elect, and the brief dialog concerning cultural matters that Arts For LA! found so stirring follows in its entirety (from the official transcript);

MR. BROKAW: "Who are the kinds of artists that you would like to bring to the White House?"

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: "Thinking about the diversity of our culture and, and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that, once again, we appreciate this incredible tapestry that's America. I - you know, that, I think, is, is going to be incredibly important, particularly because we're going through hard times. And, historically, what has always brought us through hard times is that national character, that sense of optimism, that willingness to look forward, that, that sense that better days are ahead. I think that our art and our culture, our science, you know, that's the essence of what makes America special, and, and we want to project that as much as possible in the White House."

Inviting artists to perform at the White House does not sound like a government arts program - not by a long shot; and Mr. Obama’s remark about how "our art and culture" represents the "essence of what makes America special" is facile rhetoric utilized by every politician no matter what their party affiliation.

In Dec. 2007 President Bush signed an appropriations bill that provided $144.7 million for the National Endowment for the Arts for fiscal year 2008. It was the largest funding increase for the NEA in 28 years. Does Mr. Obama intend to increase that expenditure? He has stated that he "supports increased funding for the NEA", but by how much? The highest level of funding for the NEA came during the Clinton years in 1992 - $175.9 million. Will Obama top that allocation? Will he work towards reinstating NEA grants for individual artists? - a program that was terminated under Clinton’s tenure in 1994 due to attacks from the right wing. Rather than eagerly awaiting the next pronouncement from Obama, the arts community should be organizing itself to make specific demands upon the incoming administration.

Laura Zucker of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, wrote a guest column for Arts For LA! on the subject of the arts in hard economic times. In the opening paragraph of her article titled, "Can the arts weather the recession tsunami?" Ms. Zucker wrote; "Every challenge presents new opportunities. Or as Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Obama's new chief of staff, said in an interview recently, 'Rule One: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things.'"

Whether she is in Rahm’s camp or speaks solely out of political naïveté, Ms. Zucker’s citation of Obama's chief of staff is revealing. Since Ms. Zucker choose to bring up Rahm Emanuel, allow me to point out a few facts about his career. Emanuel was Obama’s first appointee, a pick that raised eyebrows among progressives given that Emanuel was a leading member of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) - a grouping within the Democratic Party known by critics as the "Republican Wing of the Democratic Party." Rahm not only backed the congressional resolution that authorized military force against Iraq, he supported the 2003 invasion of that country. In a January 2005 interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press, Rahm said that if he could do it all over again, he would still back an invasion of Iraq - even knowing that the country possessed no weapons of mass destruction.

As head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, Rahm worked to keep anti-Iraq-war candidates off the Democratic slate. His belligerent attitude and right-wing stance on foreign policy matters has earned him the nickname of "Rahm-bo." A Nov 5, 2008 report from Reuters quoted Republican strategist John Feehery, rather gleefully declaring that Rahm "is going to spend most of his time cracking Democratic heads, getting them to move from the left to the middle. Mr. Obama is going to need a bad cop to his good cop. Mr. Emanuel fills that role nicely." That same Reuters article quoted Kevin Smith, spokesman for House Republican Leader John Boehner, commenting that Rahm was "an ironic and controversial choice, to say the least, for a presidential candidate running on a promise to change Washington."

If the remark made about Emanuel in the Arts For LA! column seemed a bit incongruous, at least Ms. Zucker had the where-with-all to broach the subject of the depression era Works Progress Administration (WPA), and how we are in need of such a program today. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the WPA in 1935, providing relief to over 8 million jobless Americans. A large portion of WPA funding went to painters, writers, actors, musicians, and directors, who were put to work on projects that enhanced the cultural heritage of the nation. But Zucker’s comment seems excessively optimistic;

"On the federal front, as discussions about big construction projects to generate jobs and stimulate the economy becomes (sic) a real strategy, let’s not forget the tremendous legacy of arts projects created through the WPA projects of the depression. How about including a mega-investment in the arts this time around as well?"

While I certainly welcome a WPA-style "mega-investment in the arts" providing work for thousands of artists in communities across the U.S., I am at a loss to think of a single reason why Obama would support such a program. At present he is under absolutely no political pressure to do so, and in any event his centrist predilections seem to bar such a contingency. If he were to mount an effort at massive arts spending, I can imagine the organized right blocking his every attempt at implementing the policy for multiple reasons, and with his striving for a bipartisan approach to governance, it seems unlikely he would take a combative stance. At any rate, Obama’s "Platform In Support Of The Arts" appears to be little more than a mix of volunteerism, corporate sponsorship, and a minimal amount of government spending. If we are to have a "mega-investment in the arts", it will only come about because the arts community and its allies apply unrelenting and effective pressure on the upcoming Obama administration.

To a large degree Roosevelt created the WPA in response to a mass-movement of workers, a situation Obama does not (yet) face. The economic collapse in the 1930s was so severe that it presented nothing less than the preconditions for revolt. Bands of organized looters stealing food became a nation-wide occurrence. "Unemployed Councils" provided direct material aid to tens of thousands of the unemployed, organizing them to fight for government relief, resist forced evictions and carry out rent strikes. By 1934 a huge wave of labor militancy had swept the nation, with strikes by hundreds of thousands of workers taking place from coast to coast. The circumstances described here only in part, forced FDR to implement massive emergency relief projects, including the Federal Art Project, which created over 5,000 jobs for artists.

For artists there are a great many parallels - and differences - to be found when comparing the Great Depression to our present situation, topics I will continue to examine on this web log. Currently there are very high expectations of changes taking place in our society, and when that frame of mind is shared by millions, societal transformation is close at hand. But individual leaders are not to be relied upon. Millions of people in motion are the engine of history - that is the only force capable of bringing about real change.

2008: Year in Review

The waning days of 2008 represent more than just a tumultuous year coming to an end, they bring closure to decades of extreme political reaction and backwardness, at least in the U.S. - or so it appears. Whether or not we are on the threshold of a new progressive era depends upon people in their tens of millions becoming actively engaged in visualizing and building a different type of society, and that is not simply a matter of political action. Art has an enormous role to play in such a process as it allows us to dream and imagine, as well as to reveal hidden truths and possibilities. What is more, art encourages critical thinking, it provokes, challenges, and dares one to visualize the impossible - a mindset we are sorely in need of today.

This year I have written a number of articles on art and artists both past and present, I offer a selection of these writings here as a "Year in Review" presentation:

(January 15) The Los Angeles Art Students League - Seed of Modernism at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. An important show on the roots of modernism in L.A. during the years 1906-1953.

(February 20) The Unveiling of Robert Scull - When money became "an overbearing influence on contemporary art." (Feb. 29) Apostles of Ugliness: 100 Years Later - The centennial of America’s very first avant-garde art movement, the so-called Ashcan School.

(March 19) Artists Against the War: A Review - To mark the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, the New York Society of Illustrators mounted an exhibit titled Artists Against The War. I wrote of review of the show for the Foreign Policy in Focus website.

(April 19) The Newspeak Newseum - The latest cultural institution to be added to the U.S. capital; "The Newseum provides the clearest look yet of a cultural institution in the service of big business." (April 26) Edward Hopper: A Retrospective - "As a youngster Hopper’s paintings provided me with an entry point into the art of the Great Depression period."

(May 1) May 68: Posters from the Paris Rebellion - "Socially conscious graphics that to this day have not been outdone in terms of political sophistication, simplicity, and effectiveness." (May 14) Robert Rauschenberg 1925-2008 - Eulogy for the iconoclastic Pop artist. (May 24) The Harvey Milk Public Monument - "The memorial bronze of Harvey Milk placed in San Francisco’s City Hall should be a constant reminder of what has yet to be achieved."

(June 13) The Cologne Progressives - "A bloc of artists that represented the radical outer fringe of the Expressionist movement of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933)."

(July 4) The Orientalists: Then and Now - The Lure of the East, British Orientalist Painting at the Tate Britain. Questioning the West’s accepted wisdom regarding the Islamic world.

(September 13) War & Empire/Art of Democracy in San Francisco - "A new and vibrant social engagement in American art." (Sept. 18) An Art World Mesmerized by Bling - "As the world burns and international financial institutions fall like so many dominoes, impulsive oligarchs and imprudent investment bankers continue to put their money into the overheated contemporary art 'market'."

(October 17) I wrote a review of the War & Empire exhibition for the Foreign Policy in Focus website.

(November 7) The Enduring Works of Goya - The Los Caprichos etchings and the continuing influence of the Spanish Master. (Nov. 2) Art and the Global Economic Meltdown - The "unavoidable political topic is on the lips of everyone in the art world these days." (Nov. 21) L.A.’s MOCA in Meltdown - "MOCA's dilemma is indicative of the crisis now rippling through the world of elite art institutions, a disaster that will only intensify as late capitalism careens into worldwide depression."

(December 2) Josep Renau: Commitment and Culture - Celebrating the 100th birthday of the Spanish painter, poster designer, and muralist. (Dec. 4) Making a Killing in Central America - My 1989 drawing depicting two of the many thousands killed by death squads in Central America during the 1980s.

The Official Portrait of President George W. Bush

On Dec 19, 2008, the official portraits of U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush were unveiled at a ceremony that took place at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., where the paintings become part of the museum’s permanent collection. Artist Robert Anderson had the dubious honor of creating the likeness of the president, and artist Aleksander Titovets the task of painting the first lady. No shoes were thrown during the ceremony before some 500 people, but Mr. Bush did attempt a joke; "I suspect there would be a good sized crowd once the word got out about my hanging." Indeed. The paintings go on public view beginning Dec 20, 2008, and I present Mr. Bush’s portrait here in my preferred manner of hanging.

I am proud to say that in the past excruciatingly long eight years I never yielded to the temptation of creating an artwork lambasting President Bush. Why? Because I am more interested in offering a systemic critique rather than one focused on individuals. Conversely, I do not believe in the cult of the personality, and I will not join those artists who opportunistically create flattering portraits of soon-to-be president, Barack Obama. It is my belief that art must never be the handmaiden to centers of power, it must always remain free and autonomous - that spirit permeates my work and drives this web log.

Call for Art: Straight & Gay Dialogue

As a heterosexual man who believes in human rights for all, I am pleased to be able to announce a National Call to U.S. Artists for the upcoming juried exhibition: Being Gay: A Visual Dialogue Between Straight and/or LGBTQ Artists. Organized by the 2nd City Council Art Gallery and Performance Space in Long Beach, California, the exhibit is open to all artists living in the United States. The entry deadline is Sunday, January 18, 2009. Having served as juror for the gallery’s 2007 Day of the Dead art exhibit, I can personally attest to the gallery’s professionalism and high standards, and I encourage one and all to submit works to this most crucial exhibition. A complete and detailed prospectus for the show is available here. The Press Release for Being Gay: A Visual Dialogue, reads in part:

"The exhibition explores such topics (but is not limited to) faith and homosexuality, gay history, sense of community, effect on professional life or society, gay neighborhoods, fashion, homophobia, straight people in gay places, ageism in the gay community, gay role models, ordinary lives, coming out, gay icons or heroes, discrimination, homosexuality as an evolutionary puzzle, integrating into society, political issues, is tolerance enough?, marriage, PRIDE, engaging in gay rights issues across cultural and religious borders, feelings associated with being gay, regional differences, gay as a main identifier, gay friends or family members. Jurors: David Burns, Austin Young & Matias Viegener. Exhibition: March 7 to April 1, 2009."

Aside from the Press Release quote cited in the above, the opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, though I expect anyone submitting work to the exhibit will have already pondered the controversies delineated in the following paragraphs. Being Gay: A Visual Dialogue, could not be a more timely or pertinent exhibit. In the elections of November 4, 2008, anti gay marriage ballot initiatives passed in California, Florida, and Arizona; while Arkansas passed a measure that bans same-sex couples from adopting children. Gay marriage was legal in California - that is, until a group of reactionaries and fundamentalist "Christian" zealots moved to change the state Constitution through the injurious Proposition 8 anti gay marriage ballot initiative. Up until election day 2008 some 18,000 same-sex couples were legally wedded in California. To protest the cruelty of first allowing gays to marry, then abruptly abrogating that right, I proudly marched in several of the massive gay rights protests staged in Los Angeles after the passage of Proposition 8 - I will gladly do so again.

One of the major backers of Proposition 8 was right-wing evangelical pastor, Rick Warren. During the campaign to pass the ballot initiative he told followers; "There are about two percent of Americans who are homosexual, gay, lesbian people. We should not let two percent of the population change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years. This is not even just a Christian issue, it is a humanitarian and human issue, that God created marriage for the purpose of family, love and procreation." But Warren is far more than just an anti-gay fundamentalist bigot who equates same-sex marriage to pedophilia and bestiality. He compares abortion to the Holocaust, advocates the assassination of foreign leaders, opposes stem-cell research, supports the Iraq war, does not believe in evolution, and awarded George W. Bush an "international medal of peace."

President-elect Barack Obama has asked Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Obama’s January 20th inauguration ceremony, and the gay and progressive community is justifiably furious.

Kevin Naff, editor of the gay newspaper Washington Blade, put the Warren pick in context when he wrote; "We have just endured eight years of endless assaults on our dignity and equality from a president beholden to bigoted conservative Christians. The election was supposed to have ended that era. It appears otherwise." Joe Solomonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay civil rights organization in the US, wrote an open letter to President-elect Obama in which he stated; "we feel a deep level of disrespect when one of the architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination."

I agree with Human Rights Campaign when it respectfully asks Obama to rescind his decision regarding Warren. Obama defended Warren by saying; "part of the magic of this country is that we are diverse and noisy and opinionated", words that Obama did not use in defense of his own pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. If there is another reason for Obama to choose Warren aside from a desire to pander to the religious right - I express regret at not being able to appreciate it. Including the backward-looking pastor in the inauguration ceremony is hardly a positive gesture from someone elected on a platform of "hope" and "change."

Every U.S. artist willing to participate in Being Gay: A Visual Dialogue - creative individuals seeking to make aesthetic statements that address the political and cultural realities of today’s gay and lesbian citizenry - should do so with deep feelings of human solidarity and without illusions. Now that would be an honest expression of real hope and change.

Making a Killing in Central America

In 1989 I created a pencil drawing titled We're Making A Killing In Central America. The image depicts two of the many thousands of innocent civilians who were tortured and murdered in Central America during the bloody conflicts of the 1980s. To "make a killing" is an English idiom that means - to do something resulting in substantial financial success - and while hundreds of thousands of Central Americans perished during the counterinsurgency wars of the '80s, there were those who profited handsomely from the loss of life.

[ We’re Making a Killing in Central America - Mark Vallen. Pencil on paper. 1989. "To 'make a killing' is an English idiom that means - to do something resulting in substantial financial success". Click here for a large view of the artwork. ]

The Refuge Media Project is an organization of filmmakers, health educators, and human rights activists who have been campaigning against state sponsored torture. Project Director Ben Achtenberg asked that I contribute some of my original artworks to the Refuge Media Project website in order to strengthen "the community of those who are trying to find ways, through their own disparate professions and media, to take a stand against torture". Finding the organization in perfect accordance with my own views regarding regimes that abuse human and civil rights, I have made available to them some of my works - including We're Making A Killing In Central America. You can view these and other artworks at the Refuge Media Project’s online Image Gallery.

There was an upsurge of extra-judicial killings in Central America during the late 1970s, when government forces and right-wing death squads in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador began annihilating opposition groups and individuals by way of kidnapping and assassination. Civilians who were abducted became known as desaparecidos, or "disappeared people", and once someone was seized they were rarely found alive again. To intimidate populations restive for social change, death squads tortured and murdered their victims, then dumped the mutilated bodies in public places. The killers took to leaving their prey in designated areas that widely became known as "body dumps". If a relative, friend, or associate was missing, people went to search for them in such places. Untold thousands perished in this way, including union organizers, workers, students, teachers, and peasants.

While most of the victims of this slaughter remain nameless to us, there were high profile cases that stunned North Americans. In 1980 the Archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Arnulfo Romero, was murdered by a right-wing death squad on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass at a small chapel. Unbelievably, even Romero’s funeral, attended by some 250,000 mourners, was attacked by right-wing snipers who killed dozens of people. Some eight months later, three American Roman Catholic nuns and a young missionary were kidnapped, rapped, and shot dead at close range by members of the U.S. backed Salvadoran army - their bodies left in shallow graves.

My drawing was indirectly inspired by the November 16, 1989, murder of six Jesuit priests carried out by the Salvadoran army. The priests, which included the rector and vice rector of El Salvador’s esteemed Central American University, were taken from their beds in an early morning army raid on a home in the capital of San Salvador. They were brutally tortured and then shot in the head. The priest’s housekeeper and her 15-year-old daughter were also viciously murdered by the soldiers.

I was so outraged by this bloody crime that I was moved to create my drawing that same year - the work’s title alluding to U.S. government complicity in arming, training, and financing the very soldiers responsible for slaughtering the innocents. But rather than depicting a well known case, I wanted to memorialize the anonymous masses who had fallen victim to the para-military death squads. In '89 I self-published my black & white artwork as a flyer which bore the artwork’s title as its headline, and I distributed 5,000 copies of the leaflet across the city of Los Angeles.

[ We’re Making a Killing in Central America - Detail. Mark Vallen. 1989.]

My drawing portrays a slain man and women laying side by side in a body dump, the grisly evidence of previous assassinations surrounding them. The man still wears the blindfold his tormentors tied over his eyes, his body bares knife wounds, his left hand has been chopped off, as has a finger from his right hand. The barefoot woman has a single bullet wound in her back. Were the two - friends, lovers, relatives? Did they know one another at all? Were they student intellectuals or peasant laborers? Were they among the first to die in the beginnings of the '70s bloodletting, or were they some of the last to perish in the final convulsive acts of violence that took place in the early '90s? We may never know the names of all the victims of state sponsored torture and murder in Central America - but we can work to assure that justice will at last find their killers.

Josep Renau: Commitment and Culture

The people of Spain have been celebrating the 100th birthday of the Spanish painter, poster designer, and muralist, Josep Renau, through a number of tributes, not the least of which has been a traveling exhibition; Josep Renau (1907-1982): Commitment and Culture. Organized by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the University of Valencia, Spain, the exhibit is now running at the Universidad de Zaragoza until January 30th, 2009 (View the Spanish language or English translated website). Comprised of over 200 works including photomontage creations, drawings, paintings, and posters, the exhibit spans the artist’s entire influential career.

[ Celebridades Norte Americanas /North American Celebrities. Josep Renau. Photomontage. 1956-65. ]

In 1992 the Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) in San Diego, California, presented the very first exhibition in the U.S. of Renau’s magnum opus photomontage series - Fata Morgana USA: The American Way of Life. I attended that exhibit and found it full of acidly sardonic photomontage works that lived up to the title of the series. Unfortunately the MoPA website does not even list the slightest detail concerning its '92 exhibit. Luckily for all however, the museum website does sell the brilliant catalogue book, Fata Morgana USA: The American Way of Life, which is an indispensable resource regarding the life and art of Renau.

When reading about the early radical proponents of photomontage, rarely is the name of Renau mentioned, yet he played a significant role in the development of the art. His montage works should be regarded with the same sense of appreciation given to the creations of John Heartfield, George Grosz, Alexander Rodchenko, Raul Hausmann, or Hannah Hoch.

[ El Presidente Habla Sobre La Paz /The President Speaks About Peace. Josep Renau. Photomontage. 1952. ]

The MoPA exhibit of Fata Morgana USA gave us Renau’s view of America as it existed from the Cold War years of the late 1940s to the early '60s. He depicted a country arrogantly projecting its military power across the globe; a land enthralled by the rise of mass media and hyper-consumerism, embroiled in anticommunist witch-hunts, and terribly divided along racial lines. In fact, some of Renau’s most engaging images had to do with America’s shameful history of racism.

[ Orgasmo Racial /Racial Orgasm - Josep Renau. Photomontage. 1951.]

At a time when African Americans could neither vote nor use facilities marked "For Whites Only", Renau’s images called attention to the fact that democracy in the U.S. was a dream left unfulfilled for millions. Perhaps his most volatile artwork on the subject was the photomontage titled Orgasmo Racial (Racial Orgasm - 1951); which presented a close-up portrait of a skull-faced white man from whose mind sprang the most fearsome imaginings, tortured and murdered black men roasting in fires set by flag waving members of the Ku Klux Klan. No less blistering a condemnation of racism was the artist’s Sombras en la Plantación (Plantation Shadows - 1955); a depiction of a Southern Belle gently swaying to and fro in a tree swing on her estate - the tree casting shadows in which you can see the agonized faces of impoverished Blacks.

To say that Renau is not widely known in the United States would be an understatement. But what is the reason for this unfamiliarity? No doubt his ideology had much to do with it, since he joined the Communist Party of Spain in 1931 and remained a lifelong member until his death. He once said, "I’m not a Communist painter, just a Communist that paints". A continued ignorance regarding his works, especially for artists at this juncture in history, is nothing short of inexcusable.

Born in Valencia, Spain, Renau graduated from art school in 1925, and then succeeded in making a living as a drawing professor - devoting himself to painting and advertising poster design. He created his first photomontage, The Arctic Man, in 1929. He would be hailed internationally in the years to come for his significant work in developing the art form. When the Spanish Civil War commenced in 1936, he designed posters in support of the Spanish Republic against the insurgent army of General Francisco Franco and his fascist allies Hitler and Mussolini. That same year the Republican government appointed Renau General Director of the Arts, giving him the responsibility of safeguarding Spain’s cultural heritage during the war, and he would transfer part of the Prado Museum’s collection in Madrid to save it from fascist bombardment. In 1937 Renau helped design the Spanish Pavilion at the International Exhibition of Arts and Technology in Paris, France, where he commissioned Pablo Picasso to paint a mural for the Pavilion in support of the Spanish Republic. The result would be Picasso’s Guernica.

When the fascists succeeded in crushing the Spanish Republic in 1939, Renau, like millions of Spaniards, went into exile. He first traveled to France and then to Mexico, where a large number of Republican exiles settled. Upon his arrival in Mexico he began a collaboration with the artist David Alfaro Siqueiros, helping to paint Retrato de la Burguesia (Portrait of the Bourgeoisie), a revolutionary mural for the Electrician’s Union headquarters in Mexico City.

In 1940 Renau became a Mexican citizen, and being well versed in advertising art he made a living designing posters for the Mexican film industry. Eventually he turned his critical gaze toward American culture, and imagined the beginnings of his masterwork, Fata Morgana USA. Those familiar with medieval studies will recognize "Fata Morgana" as the Italian name for Morgan LaFée, King Arthur’s fairy half-sister who produced mirages in order to bewilder enemies. But Renau was interested in the name because it defined a "mirage" as an actual phenomenon, and he had it in mind to use his caustic photomontage art to expose American myths as the greatest of all illusions.

To accomplish his task Renau combined his mastery of photomontage with his expertise in the language of mass media and advertising design; not to conjure up a forerunner to pop art, which was accommodationist to corporate power, but to create a visual language that would subvert advertising and the system it sprang from. Renau began compiling thousands of photographs from the pages of American magazines and newspapers, inventing a catalog system for the collection of images to facilitate the construction of his montages. With precision Renau used the simple tools of razor blade and glue to combine photographic elements, putting the last touches on a montage by painting out unwanted areas or filling in details with pencil or brush. When a finalized work was photographed for publication, the constructed image appeared altogether seamless. Years later the artist would comment on the beginnings of his project, saying that it:

"(....) was to a considerable part drafted in Mexico, the only Latin American country which has a joint border with the United States and where, for this reason, the physical, psychological and political pressure of Yankee imperialism is expressed more directly and brutally than anywhere else.

(....) It is noteworthy how much society in USA is most effectively softened up by the powerful eroding action of the big monopolies and how it has become sensitive to the striking feed-back of the mass media (film, radio, television, newspapers, comics, magazines, etc.). This takes place to such a degree that the formula 'American way of life' - partially and tendentiously abstracted from social reality itself - is taking on the shape of a real 'model'; this concerns a considerable part of the US population which has of necessity formed itself in accordance with the commandments of such an abstraction."

In 1958 Renau moved to the German Democratic Republic where his work on Fata Morgana USA began in earnest. When Spanish dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975, Renau visited Spain the next year for the first time since his exile, taking the opportunity to exhibit some of his Fata Morgana USA images in several cities. As part of the Venice Biennial of '76, Renau would show his completed Fata Morgana USA series consisting of 69 images. It was not until '77 that Renau published 40 select works in book form under the title of Fata Morgana USA. In 1982 Renau died in East Berlin at the age of 75.

[ Recién Casados /Just Married. Josep Renau. Photomontage. 1957.]

While influenced by dada and surrealism, Renau’s works never offered incoherent rage or dream-like escapism. His was a didactic art that peeled away layers of myth and obfuscation to reveal unpleasant realities. Sometimes his images accomplished this through whimsy, at other times with a frank bluntness, but he always made his point in a highly imaginative way. Take for example his photomontage Recién Casados (Just Married - 1957), depicting a blushing bride, who in actuality is a metaphorical stand-in for the U.S. public. Joined in matrimonial bliss to a robber baron who has an oil drill bit as a head, the bride carries what appears to be a heart shaped floral arrangement, but in reality it is nothing more than another oil drill bit. At the feet of the lovebirds, drooling paparazzi jockey for position, while in the background a gushing oil well symbolizes the couple’s consummated relationship. This rumination on the oligarchy and its relationship to the public was also a prescient comment on gender politics, a topic to which Renau would return time and again.

[ Miss Bistec de Chicago /Miss Beefsteak of Chicago - Josep Renau. Photomontage. 1960/66.]

A continually running narrative throughout Fata Morgana USA is the subjugation and objectification of women, which Renau not only attributed to the workings of capitalism, but insisted was necessary for the system to work at all. In Dia de la Victoria (Day of Victory - 1953), Renau constructed his photomontage around a full page photo of an alluring lingerie model posing in Life magazine. At first glance the montage seems festive with its marching band, confetti, streamers and fluttering flags, until one notices the barely concealed caption to the original photo; "Victory Lingerie: A top U.S. designer creates models to welcome home service husbands". A second glance reveals the scantily clad model is surrounded by U.S. veterans of the Korean War - and they are all amputees.

[ Sociedad de Consumidor /Consumer Society. Josep Renau. Photomontage. 1972.]

Taken as a whole, Fata Morgana USA can be seen as a comprehensive denunciation of capitalist culture, but of the dozens of images in the series that strike at commercialism, perhaps none cut so deeply as the 1972 photomontage, Sociedad de Consumidor (Consumer Society). Here Renau visualized the citizen being reduced to nothing more than a mindless consumer, ingesting without hesitation an endless stream of manufactured goods and desires that includes the ideology of capitalism itself. But while the word "consumption" denotes the act or process of consuming things, it is also an archaic medical term that refers to the wasting away of the body; and the physical presence of Renau’s consumer has withered into an undemanding and simple receptacle. We are left to wonder how the artist would have commented on the "Black Friday" 2008 Christmas season in the U.S., when hundreds of holiday shoppers in a mad rush to buy cheap consumer goods at a New York Wal-Mart trampled an employee to death.

Frank Cieciorka: RIP

On November 24, 2008, artist Frank Cieciorka (che-CHOR-ka) died from emphysema at the age of 69. Starting in the 1980s he began to be recognized for his watercolor paintings of northern California landscapes, but it would be one of his early graphic art designs that assured him a place in history.

The iconic clenched fist has long been a symbol of the international left, its usage going back at least until 1917. But the symbol was transformed and revitalized in 1965 by Cieciorka, whose rendition of the pictogram struck a cord with a new generation of activists involved in the civil rights and antiwar struggles.

[ Cieciorka as a young Freedom Summer volunteer in Mississippi, 1964. Photo, estate of Frank Cieciorka ©. Source - Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement website. ]

A New Yorker, Cieciorka came to California in 1957 to attend the arts program at San Jose State College. Upon graduation in 1964 he became a volunteer in Freedom Summer, the major civil rights campaign launched in '64 to help African Americans register to vote in Mississippi. That same year the Ku Klux Klan kidnapped, tortured, and murdered three Freedom Summer volunteers - James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. From 1964-65 Cieciorka also served as a field secretary in Mississippi and Arkansas for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC - pronounced "snick"), one of the primary civil rights organizations of the day.

[ Hand - Frank Cieciorka. Woodcut. 1965. "One of the most striking symbols to have come out of the turbulent 60s".]

Cieciorka returned to the San Francisco Bay area in 1965, and created a woodcut print inspired by his experiences as a civil rights activist in the deep South. His image, simply titled Hand, made its way onto posters and flyers, but according to the artist, "It wasn’t until we made it into a button and tossed thousands of them into crowds at rallies and demonstrations that it really became popular". I wore one of Cieciorka’s buttons as a sixteen-year-old, and I still regard his woodcut print as one of the most striking symbols to have come out of the turbulent 60s.

For more on the life and times of Frank Cieciorka, visit Lincoln Cushing’s Docs Populi.

L.A.’s MOCA in Meltdown

Los Angeles’ flagship museum dedicated to modern art of the last fifty years may cease to exist. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), has been incapacitated by a crushing financial crisis of its own making. On November 19, 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that "The museum has burned through $20 million in unrestricted funds and borrowed $7.5 million from other accounts. Cash from donors is being sought. A merger has not been ruled out."

It appears that MOCA Director Jeremy Strick and the museum trustees are guilty of a total failure of leadership - not to mention the gross mismanagement of the world famous museum. As a nonprofit institution, MOCA collects little government funding and instead relies on donors for some 80% of its expenses. By checking the GuideStar website, which keeps track of nonprofits and their donors, it has come to light that Strick has a salary of $500,000. Readers should be reminded that the annual compensation of the president of the United States is $400,000. Strick also pays at least five higher-ranking MOCA employees six figure salaries. Furthermore, the Board of MOCA loaned Strick over $500,000 for the purchase of a house - all at a time when the museum is tottering on total financial collapse.

In his Open letter to MOCA’s board of trustees, L.A. Times art critic Christopher Knight puts the blame for MOCA’s crisis squarely upon Director Jeremy Strick as well as the museum’s trustees; "As trustees your first responsibility is fiduciary, and in that you have been a flop". Knight went on to disparage the supposed "rescue plans" being considered to save the museum as "shameful". The irate art critic made the following comments about the proposed rescue strategies:

"One would rent your incomparable painting and sculpture collection to a local foundation - controlled by one of your own trustees! - in exchange for some sort of multimillion-dollar annuity. The other would be a flat-out sale of it to another museum, so that you might shift the fundraising burden elsewhere, take the revenue and continue as an exhibition-only venue.

Yes, we live in a market economy, where art is bought and sold; but one of the glories of an art museum is that it provides refuge from the crude commercial world. When art enters a museum's permanent collection, it leaves the marketplace behind. That your first instinct is apparently scheming to monetize your extraordinary collection shows that you are not trustees, you are art dealers in disguise.

The third plan I've been told about is even worse - total Armageddon. A merger with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in which the collection and selected staff would move to the Mid-Wilshire campus and the downtown facilities would close, would mean MOCA would cease to exist. You seem to be willing to allow your own institution, one whose remarkable program and astounding collection are the envy of cities around the world, to simply disappear. Dumbfounding."

Apparently the Armageddon option has been selected. On the Los Angeles Times arts blog, Knight stated; "(....) here is what I'm told the board is now prepared to do: formally approach the Los Angeles County Museum of Art about a merger, which will effectively mean a transfer of MOCA's extraordinary collection to the Mid-Wilshire complex."

To be honest, I have never been enamored of MOCA. True enough, it houses notable works from the likes of Arshile Gorky, Robert Rauscheberg, Jackson Pollock, and others; and in 2003 it did present a wonderful retrospective of paintings by Lucian Freud. But as of late MOCA has advanced pointless and vacuous works that tell us nothing about the human condition, witness the loathsome Takashi Murakami. To survive as a viable institution, which seems doubtful at this point, MOCA’s continued existence depends on more than just massive infusions of capital - it requires a new vision. That being said, I take no particular delight in seeing one of the major art museums of my city going to ruin.

MOCA's dilemma is indicative of the crisis now rippling through the world of elite art institutions, a disaster that will only intensify as late capitalism careens into worldwide depression. But the problem is much more than just financial, it is one of art and culture having reached an aesthetic and political impasse. Breaking through that dead-end to reach the transformative and liberating will be necessary if the crisis in contemporary art is to be resolved.

UPDATES:
Dec. 23, 2008. In its article, MOCA accepts Broad’s lifeline, the Los Angeles Times reports that MOCA has voted to accept a $30-million bailout offered by billionaire Eli Broad (whose name rhymes with "load"). Additionally, MOCA's director Jeremy Strick has resigned and the ailing museum has appointed UCLA Chancellor Emeritus Charles E. Young as its CEO. Acceptance of the Broad offer ends speculation that MOCA might merge with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Bloomberg.com reports that in a Dec. 23 joint statement made by MOCA and the Broad foundation, Mr. Broad said; "It is in the best interest of the city for MOCA to remain independent." There is more irony to be found in that remark than in all of the postmodern art found in MOCA’s collection. In 2007 Broad was ranked by FORBES as number 42 on its list of 400 richest Americans - with an estimated net worth of over $5.8 billion. He is also the founding chairman of MOCA, and his bailout of the institution should be seen in that context. Broad is also chair of the Los Angeles Grand Avenue Authority, which plans a $1.8 billion "improvement" of the downtown area where MOCA is located.

Nov. 21, 2008. A spokeswoman for MOCA released the following statement: "MOCA has received a letter from the California attorney general's office. The California attorney general has broad jurisdiction and oversight over California nonprofits, including MOCA. The letter requested information and documents related to the museum's finances. MOCA is fully cooperating with the attorney general." So far the office of the attorney general has not commented on its investigation of the museum.

Gouge: The Modern Woodcut

Gouge: The Modern Woodcut 1870 to Now, is a splendid exhibition of woodcut and linoleum prints now showing until Feb. 8, 2009, at the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California. On display are 100 diverse and quite extraordinary prints from the likes of Paul Gauguin, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Käthe Kollwitz, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Joseph Beuys, and many others too numerous to mention.

Divided into four thematic sections, the first presents the emergence of modern printmaking in the 1870’s, the second shows how artists used the grain of the wood to enhance their compositions, the third is devoted to prints in the arena of social activism, and the final section presents sacred and religious iconography. While I could easily wax poetic on the prints included under each theme, in this article I will focus on the prints categorized under social activism, or as the Hammer defined them - prints that are "The Voice Of The Activist".

[ La Seudorepublica y la Revolucion (The Pseudo-republic and The Revolution). Carmelo Gonzalez Iglesias. Woodcut. 1960. 51 x 169 inches. Detail from the upper left of the monumental print. In the foreground sits a worker paralyzed by hunger and despair. Springing up behind him are Cuban sugarcane cutters rising in revolution with machetes in hand. They are led by Lady Liberty bearing a sword and wearing a Phrygian cap - the international icon of revolution and freedom. ]

Without a doubt, the core of the exhibit is comprised of two monumental woodcut prints from Cuba; The Pseudo-Republic and the Revolution by Carmelo Gonzalez Iglesias, and Latin America, Unite! by Luis Peñalever Collazo - who was a student of Iglesias. In contemplating the intricate woodcut prints one is left dumbfounded by the fact that they were designed to be used as street posters!

[ The Pseudo-republic and The Revolution. Detail from the left panels of the monumental print. A revolutionary worker breaks the chains that bind him, defiantly waving a machete with the word "Independencia" emblazoned upon it. He exhorts his armed compañeros (bottom left) to join the battle against their oppressors, and they can be seen - middle left - fleeing into the arms of an eagle-faced Uncle Sam.]

Iglesias and Collazo are beyond reproach when it comes to superlative draftsmanship, clear narrative, and technical virtuosity. Their prints make today’s vaunted "street-art" seem feeble in comparison. Unfortunately the Hammer would not allow photography in the gallery, and the museum has not made available any decent reproductions of these extraordinary prints. The few image details I present here are woefully inadequate in conveying the beauty and power of these Cuban woodcuts.

[ America Latina, Unete! (Latin America, Unite!) Luis Peñalever Collazo. Woodcut. 1960. 33-7/8 x 87-1/2 inches. Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum. Photo by Brian Forrest. ]

[ Latin America, Unite! Detail from the left panels depicting the insurgent Cuban masses led by a woman who points the way towards revolution. A slain comrade is at the feet of marchers who carry a banner reading - "Venceremos" (We Will Win). ]

Both Pseudo-Republic and Unite! were created in 1960, just a year after the triumph of the revolution against the U.S. backed regime of General Fulgencio Batista. Since the majority of the mural-like prints were wheat-pasted on city walls in Cuba, not many copies survived intact. However, in 1961 Che Guevara gave a set of the prints to a young foreign student in Cuba, Maurice Zeitlin (now a UCLA professor), and the gift to Zeitlin currently hangs in the Hammer exhibit. Printed from seven different woodblocks, Pseudo-Republic measures 51 by 169 inches, and like puzzle pieces, when the separate prints are brought together properly - they become one cohesive narrative. Unite! is somewhat smaller at 33 7/8 by 87 1/2 inches, but no less effective. It too was printed from several carved woodblocks.

[ Latin America, Unite! Detail from central panels depicting combat between a Cuban patriot and a knife wielding imperialist. ]

The exhibit has a small but weighty collection of graphics produced by the Mexican collective - El Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP - Popular Graphic Arts Workshop). Included in this grouping is a beautiful linoleum cut by African American artist, Elizabeth Catlett, who worked with the TGP when she moved to and settled in Mexico in 1946. The print on display is titled Sharecropper, and only a few black and white proofs were made by Catlett in 1952. In 1968-70 the artist would pull an edition of 60 full color prints - but it is one of the stunning black and white proofs that is on view at the Hammer. Another of the TGP associated artists shown in Gouge is Leopoldo Méndez, who surely was one of Mexico’s most impressive socially conscious printmakers. I was first introduced to his works during the 1970’s, when his fiery prints were enthusiastically circulated in Chicano arts and activist circles in the U.S. In the near future I will be writing extensively about Méndez on this web log, but for now, all that is necessary to say is that his print at the Hammer show, The Heritage of Juarez - is a marvel to behold.

[ Latin America, Unite! Detail from right panels depicting life under capitalism. Workers divided by race bludgeon each other over dwindling resources, women sell themselves into prostitution, and imperialist war planes launch attacks. ]

Gouge also presents three woodcuts by David Alfaro Siqueiros from his 13 Grabados series. In 1930 the artist spent 6 months in a Mexican prison for having participated in a May Day demonstration. While incarcerated he created 13 grabados (engravings), cut from scrap wood, and upon his release he printed a small edition of proofs. It would not be until he came to Los Angeles as a political refugee in 1932 that he would print his woodcuts as a full portfolio in an edition of 100. In tribute to the great Mexican printmaker, José Guadalupe Posada, the prints were made on colored tissue - and three of these made their way into the Gouge exhibit. Stylistically the works are blunt, almost abstract, and not surprisingly they deal with issues of state repression and violence.

In addition, Gouge has on view an impressive collection of prints from the German Expressionists. Woodcuts by Erich Heckel, Emile Nolde, Christian Rohlfs, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Lovis Corinth, and Käthe Kollwitz - all provide consummate examples of the Expressionist school I so unwaveringly admire. But it is two woodcuts created by Conrad Felixmüller in 1921 that I find especially delightful - if for no other reason than the artist is so little known in the U.S. and rarely if at all exhibited. Felixmüller’s Factory Worker (Invalid) and Mine Engineer, are sympathetic portraits of working men, a common theme for the artist. Stylistically the brusque angular portraits explode with dynamic swirls of energy and agitated lines, while revealing considerable empathy for the men he portrayed.

The Gouge exhibition is not without its weaknesses. The contemporary prints, relying heavily on gimmickry, by and large convey little more than the detached hollowness one associates with postmodernism. The limitations of these new works, deficient in both originality and anything significant to say, is made all the more apparent when they are compared to the older works in the exhibit. Another drawback to the show is that it lacks an exhibit catalog. I could write volumes on the tour de force works of the Cuban artists alone. Given the fact that outside of Cuba virtually nothing is known about these particular artworks or the artists that produced them, it is indeed unfortunate that the Hammer has not published even a diminutive catalog. Despite these failings Gouge is a blockbuster show not to be missed.

Gouge: The Modern Woodcut 1870 to Now - at the Hammer Museum from November 9, 2008 through February 8, 2009. On Feb. 4, 2009, exhibit curators will hold a 12:30 lunchtime talk concerning Luis Peñalever Collazo and his woodcut, Latin America, Unite!

The City of Light Despoiled

Years ago I visited the breathtaking city of Venice, Italy, world-famous for its canals, gondolas, and Renaissance architecture. It is truly the most incomparably beautiful city on the face of the earth. During my visit I strolled through the remarkable Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square), taking in the splendors of the Doge’s Palace and the magnificent St Mark’s Basilica.

Inspiring painters from throughout the centuries, the natural light found in Venice is ethereal, unearthly. Bellini, Titian, and Giorgione made the "City of Light" their home. In actuality, oil painting on stretched canvas began in Venice at the start of the sixteenth century, and the city’s Vendecolori, those professionals who sold prepared pigments for oil painting since the 1490’s, attracted artists from all over Italy and beyond. Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer, Michelangelo and many other masters came to visit "La Serinissima" - the most serene Republic of Venice.

But this article is not about the grandeur of Venice, it is unhappily about its degradation - and by extension, the decline of us all. Until just recently one could meander through the Piazza San Marco and feel as though you were walking back in time 500 years. Today however, the immediate thing that strikes you is the enormous commercial banner advertisement that hangs over the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana - the National Library of St Mark’s that faces the Doge’s Palace. It is the first time in history that public advertising has been allowed in the city, and there are other colossal advertisements being readied to despoil the beauty of Venice.

[ Colossal ad banner for the Swatch "007 Villain Collection", hung on the National Library of St Mark in the Piazzetta of San Marco, Venice Italy, 2008. Photo - The Art Newspaper. ]

In an article titled Protest over advertising in St Mark’s Square, Venice, The Art Newspaper of London reports that advertising agencies "dealing in mega-advertising locations have realized they can exploit a recent change in the law" to put public space and building facades on sale to commercial advertisers. In other words, world cultural heritage is being sold off to the highest bidder so that banal, mass produced bobbles can be marketed to the masses. As confirmed by The Art Newspaper; "Currently the villain of a 007 movie looms out of a huge Swatch ad on the Piazzetta of San Marco while two Lancia cars drive over the façade of the Doge’s Palace and even the Bridge of Sighs carries a banner."

The marvelous renaissance buildings of Venice being draped with inane commercial advertisements is an outrage and a cause for real alarm. It represents, not only an unrelenting dumbing-down of culture and an obfuscation of history, but a foretelling of the day when all public and private space everywhere will become nothing more than a platform for advertising. If the architectural wonders of Venice can be swathed in ads, then why not the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Giza, or the Taj Mahal? The world’s cultural heritage belongs to all of humankind, and it should be treasured and preserved, not turned over to a cabal of marketers and advertisers who have dollar signs in their eyes. It is time to take down those advertising banners in the Piazza San Marco - in fact, it is time to take them down the world over.

Obama’s Arts & Culture Policy

It is noteworthy that the upcoming administration of President-Elect Barack Obama is the first to present a detailed formal arts policy prior to inauguration. To foster debate, this article will reproduce in full, the Obama/Biden Platform In Support Of The Arts - with a link to the original .pdf document located on www.barackobama.com. I encourage a thorough reading of the platform, but also a vigorous debate of its various points.

An opportunity for a wide public examination and discussion of the Obama/Biden Arts Policy will avail itself on Thursday, November 20th, when Americans for the Arts host a live "webcast" conversation with Bill Ivey, former Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) during the Clinton administration and the current Chair of the Obama Arts & Culture Transition Team. Those living in the greater Los Angeles area can attend the free event at the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica. Those who cannot attend may view the webcast from their home computer, after first becoming a member of Americans for the Arts. Details on registering for the event or watching the broadcast are available here. I plan on attending the Nov. 20th, Santa Monica event, and will follow up with a detailed report and critique of the Obama/Biden Platform In Support Of The Arts.

While the platform planks appear to be important first steps in resuscitating the Arts in America, they should not simply be accepted without critical analysis. I find several of the planks to be questionable, i.e., Private Partnerships, Cultural Diplomacy, and Health Care to Artists being the most glaring examples, and overall I believe the entire Platform In Support Of The Arts is wholly inadequate and in need of significant expansion.

When reviewing the Obama/Biden Platform In Support Of The Arts, one should keep in mind that the 2009 budget for the United States Department of Defense is $515.4 billion - up $5.7 billion from fiscal year 2008; whereas total NEA funding for fiscal 2008 came to $144.664 million. Granted, these figures are from a budget enacted by George W. Bush, but it is hard to imagine an Obama administration modifying such an imbalance - especially since it promises a "rebuilding" of the U.S. military and an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, all while the economy is teetering on depression.

Whatever one might think of Barack Obama being compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, this much is undeniable - FDR’s sweeping New Deal reforms came about only as a result of massive public pressure from an electorate that demanded and struggled for deep and lasting transformation. No less so, Obama can only be compelled to pursue a progressive agenda through the unrelenting demands of a mobilized citizenry. As the great African American patriot Frederick Douglass once said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN:
CHAMPIONS FOR ARTS AND CULTURE
A PLATFORM IN SUPPORT OF THE ARTS

Reinvest in Arts Education: To remain competitive in the global economy, America needs to reinvigorate the kind of creativity and innovation that has made this country great. To do so, we must nourish our children’s creative skills. In addition to giving our children the science and math skills they need to compete in the new global context, we should also encourage the ability to think creatively that comes from a meaningful arts education. Unfortunately, many school districts are cutting instructional time for art and music education. Barack Obama believes that the arts should be a central part of effective teaching and learning. The Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts recently said "The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society." To support greater arts education, Obama will:

Expand Public/Private Partnerships Between Schools and Arts Organizations: Barack Obama will increase resources for the U.S. Department of Education’s Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination Grants, which develop public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizations. Obama will also engage the foundation and corporate community to increase support for public/private partnerships.

Create an Artist Corps: Barack Obama supports the creation of an "Artists Corps" of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and their communities. Studies in Chicago have demonstrated that test scores improved faster for students enrolled in low-income schools that link arts across the curriculum than scores for students in schools lacking such programs.

Publicly Champion the Importance of Arts Education: As president, Barack Obama will use the bully pulpit and the example he will set in the White House to promote the importance of arts and arts education in America. Not only is arts education indispensable for success in a rapidly changing, high skill, information economy, but studies show that arts education raises test scores in other subject areas as well.

Support Increased Funding for the NEA: Over the last 15 years, government funding for the National Endowment for the Arts has been slashed from $175 million annually in 1992 to $125 million today. Barack Obama supports increased funding for the NEA, the support of which enriches schools and neighborhoods all across the nation and helps to promote the economic development of countless communities.

Promote Cultural Diplomacy: American artists, performers and thinkers – representing our values and ideals – can inspire people both at home and all over the world. Through efforts like that of the United States Information Agency, America’s cultural leaders were deployed around the world during the Cold War as artistic ambassadors and helped win the war of ideas by demonstrating to the world the promise of America. Artists can be utilized again to help us win the war of ideas against Islamic extremism. Unfortunately, our resources for cultural diplomacy are at their lowest level in a decade. Barack Obama will work to reverse this trend and improve and expand public-private partnerships to expand cultural and arts exchanges throughout the world.

Attract Foreign Talent: The flipside to promoting American arts and culture abroad is welcoming members of the foreign arts community to America. Opening America’s doors to students and professional artists provides the kind of two-way cultural understanding that can break down the barriers that feed hatred and fear. As America tightened visa restrictions after 9/11, the world’s most talented students and artists, who used to come here, went elsewhere. Barack Obama will streamline the visa process to return America to its rightful place as the world’s top destination for artists and art students.

Provide Health Care to Artists: Finding affordable health coverage has often been one of the most vexing obstacles for artists and those in the creative community. Since many artists work independently or have non-traditional employment relationships, employer-based coverage is unavailable and individual policies are financially out of reach. Barack Obama’s plan will provide all Americans with quality, affordable health care. His plan includes the creation of a new public program that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health care similar to that available to federal employees. His plan also creates a National Health Insurance Exchange to reform the private insurance market and allow Americans to enroll in participating private plans, which would have to provide comprehensive benefits, issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums. For those who still cannot afford coverage, the government will provide a subsidy. His health plan will lower costs for the typical American family by up to $2,500 per year.

Ensure Tax Fairness for Artists: Barack Obama supports the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The Act amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow artists to deduct the fair market value of their work, rather than just the costs of the materials, when they make charitable contributions.

New York Times Proclaims End to Wars

Well… not really. Unidentified merry pranksters have published and distributed a fake "special edition" of The New York Times with a banner headline that proclaims; "IRAQ WAR ENDS: Troops to Return Immediately". The first sentence of an accompanying article reads: "Thousands take to the streets to celebrate the announced end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan". On Wednesday morning, Nov. 12, 2008, over one million copies of the forged edition were circulated for free by volunteers working with the anonymous publishers.

[ Front page of the fake "special edition" of The New York Times, Nov. 12, 2008. ]

The counterfeit edition also features full articles with titles like; "Nation Sets Its Sights on Building Sane Economy", "Maximum Wage Law Succeeds", "USA Patriot Act Repealed", "Nationalized Oil To Fund Climate Change Efforts", "Gitmo, Other Centers Closed", "Health Insurance Act Clears House", and "Bush to Face Charges".

It will certainly be argued that the intricate prank qualifies more as activism than art - but the hoax displays a good deal more inspiration and relevancy than the greater part of today’s conceptual or performance art practices. The press release for the sophisticated hoax reads as follows:

"November 12, 2008 - Early this morning, commuters nationwide were delighted to find out that while they were sleeping, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had come to an end. If, that is, they happened to read a 'special edition' of today's New York Times. In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street.

Articles in the paper announce dozens of new initiatives including the establishment of national health care, the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for C.E.O.s, and, of course, the end of the war.

The paper, an exact replica of The New York Times, includes International, National, New York, and Business sections, as well as editorials, corrections, and a number of advertisements, including a recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline. There is also a timeline describing the gains brought about by eight months of progressive support and pressure, culminating in President Obama's 'Yes we REALLY can' speech. (The paper is post-dated July 4, 2009.)

'It's all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever,' said Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper's writers. 'We've got to make sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do. After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start imagining heaven.' Not all readers reacted favorably. 'The thing I disagree with is how they did it,' said Stuart Carlyle, who received a paper in Grand Central Station while commuting to his Wall Street brokerage. 'I'm all for freedom of speech, but they should have started their own paper.'"

The pranksters have also published a phony New York Times website that mirrors the content of the faux paper. I have had trouble reaching the website - no doubt due to heavy traffic, and it remains to be seen how long it will manage to stay online before the real New York Times succeeds in shutting it down. The website includes clever additions unavailable in the paper - like videos and animated advertisements.

[ Still from video showing the distribution of the fake New York Times. ]

One video documents the distribution of the fake NYT on the streets of New York City - and the responses from the citizenry are remarkable. A fictitious ad for American Apparel apologizes for the company being "naughty", while pledging, "…but now we are unionizing our employees". The Fine Print, the editorial statement published on the sham website, fully explains the intent behind the guerilla art/activist project:

"This special edition of The New York Times comes from a future in which we are accomplishing what we know today to be possible. The dozens of volunteer citizens who produced this paper spent the last eight years dreaming of a better world for themselves, their friends, and any descendants they might end up having. Today, that better world, though still very far away, is finally possible - but only if millions of us demand it, and finally force our government to do its job.

It certainly won’t be easy. Even now, corporate representatives are swarming over Washington to get their agendas passed. The energy giants are demanding 'clean coal,' nuclear power and offshore drilling. Military contractors are pushing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. H.M.O.s and insurance companies are promoting bogus 'reforms' so they can forestall universal health care. And they’re not about to take no for an answer.

But things are different this time. This time, we can hold accountable the politicians we put into office. And because everyone can now see that the 'free market' has nothing to do with freedom, there is a huge opening to pass policies that can benefit all Americans, and that can make us truly free - free to pursue an education without debt, go on vacation every once in a while, keep healthy, and live without the crushing guilt of knowing what our tax dollars are doing abroad."

The NYT special edition guerilla art project not only encourages people to imagine a better world, it urges them to struggle for it. This is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in an ad featured in both the paper and online editions. The ad features a smiling Barack Obama, along with the words: "Epoch-making, Pivotal, Squandered. The more we look at the world the more we understand that some things really matter. Not only our choice of President, but how we make sure that he, like all of our elected officials, does what we elected him to do - its not over yet."

[ UPDATE: Late Wed. afternoon - 11/12/08, I received a Press Release from the organizers of the spoof, who are claiming that: "Hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists" are responsible for the action. Quoting from the communiqué: "The people behind the project are involved in a diverse range of groups, including The Yes Men, the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin, and Cultures of Resistance".

Steve Lambert, one of the project's organizers and an editor of the paper, said; "We wanted to experience what it would look like, and feel like, to read headlines we really want to read. It's about what's possible, if we think big and act collectively." One of the project's organizers, Beka Economopoulos, stated that; "This election was a massive referendum on change. There's a lot of hope in the air, but there's a lot of uncertainty too. It's up to all of us now to make these headlines come true." Andy Bichlbaum, another project organizer and editor of the paper, stated; "It doesn't stop here. We gave Obama a mandate, but he'll need mandate after mandate after mandate to do what we elected him to do. He'll need a lot of support, and yes - a lot of pressure." ]

Art Exhibit Censored in Berkeley

In Berkeley, California, the city known as the birthplace of the 1960s Free Speech Movement, an antiwar poster exhibition organized by the Art of Democracy project has been censored by a City of Berkeley-run arts venue.

The Art of Democracy poster exhibit was scheduled to go on display from Oct. 20 through Nov. 29, 2008, at the Addison Street Windows Gallery - a project of the Civic Arts Program and the Civic Arts Comm