CITIZEN ARTISTS MAKING EMPHATIC ARGUMENTS
The Future of Nations- Part Three
Guest curated by Al Nodal
July 12-September 13, 2008
Artists:
Ala Plastica
Lauren Bon
BULBO
CoLabART ∞ LYNN SMALL + DENNIS PAUL
Echo Park Film Center
Fallen Fruit
Newton & Helen Mayer Harrison
Invisible 5
Natalie Jeremijenko
Tom Reddock
Shannon Spanahake
Kim Stringfellow
Robert Tannen, and:
Los Animistas, 18th Street Artist Fellow
Artists are like everyone else in a civil society. They read the news everyday and participate in all of the daily issues and debates of the day. The social and civic processes, that no conscious person can avoid at this time of uncertainty, are addressed by the artists in this show with emphatic arguments towards making this a better world. In the process, these Citizen Artists do just that with great art that documents, communicates, and directly impacts the natural and man made problems facing us all in articulate and powerful ways.
Powerful art has often resulted in stifling cultural expression by governments and others that are better served by denial, silence and obscuration. Obvious examples of direct thought-control and censorship are everywhere, especially in totalitarian regimes. And even in a democracy such as ours, we witnessed the wet blanket over freedom of expression spread by the likes of Jesse Helms and the US Congress in the early 1990's, and more recently the self-censorship that was endemic in American media at the start of the current war with Iraq. The gradual alienation of the artist in the civic realm starting in the last two decades of the 20th Century in American Culture, combined with the almost absolute abdication of any struggle for a civic role for culture by American intellectuals, and the masses opting for technology and entertainment over anything meaningful, has produced an ever impoverished and cynical public culture with television and credit cards being the principal players.
As an antidote to all the gloom, The Citizen Artist achieves plenty of success in a growing body of work that is shedding light on issues critical to sustaining life, and in framing the questions (and sometimes) challenges to the status quo in ways that the world can understand and answer to. The traditional definition of a good citizen is someone who works for the common good. Certainly artists from Goya to Bueys to Christo have focused throughout art history on social, political, and civic issues of the day, sometimes intentionally ‘in your face’ and sometimes, like Goya, in a more socially detached way—but with great meaning and importance to world events.
Today, the general search for change and accountability that the global community is demanding, based on a gloomy assessment of current world events, has gathered momentum for this work. The artists in this show are strong change agents for civic, social, political, environmental, and a myriad of other interests. These Citizen Artists have become a force again in contemporary life.
This work specifically has precedent in the important art activism that took place in the 1970’s and in the 1980's focused on the issue of AIDS desperation at the time, and government indifference to what then looked like a disease of the “other.” Radical activists used cultural means to make the story human for the world. Art and social action groups like Act Up, and other cultural activists produced enlightened works of political art. In the process, many other artists followed through with beautiful statements that made the world understand the issues related to the disease and the human side of the struggle. Obviously, gender based artists and performers and Feminist art have contributed mightily to raising the collective consciousness about issues of our bodies and the socio/political environment around us. Over the last two decades, some elements of the contemporary art world have steadily moved from elitism to service through the community arts and public art movements.
The transformative effect of art in making a better world is well-documented. At all levels of society, art makes substantial contributions to everyday life. And just as politicians and policy-makers have just recently recognized Global Warming, we all have to finally accept and use the power of culture in addressing vital global issues.
The works included primarily work at a civic level-often with global implications-and represent a community art practice informed by the myriad studies that have been produced over the last three decades about all aspects of benefits from a vibrant art and cultural impact on civic identity, education, economic development, tourism, social relations, even disaster preparedness and response. Creativity and innovation are a driving force in keeping us competitive in the world marketplace. Our biggest export is innovation and ideas, we don’t design new widgets anymore. In particular, this country is very much in need of moral ambassadors to show the rest of the world that we have not really lost our moral compass. I believe that the artists represented in this show are providing a great service to society and ushering us forwards in inspiring ways.
Currently, the Citizen Artists employed a collaborative process with a multidisciplinary approach, involving all creative disciplines in collaboration with politicians, environmental activists, scientists, and community organizers to help individuals and communities understand and face the challenges of environmental justice, global environmental degradation, and for the last eight years, US indifference to environmental issues facing our world. Over the last three years, this exciting momentum for creative solutions of many kinds has reached a critical mass.
The innovative work in this field commonly called the “green movement,” is still happening in small increments. Certainly, government has not stepped up to the plate significantly in the US and throughout the Americas; and the corporate sector, other than adding a bit of green- washing to their media hype, has not yet truly unleashed its massive power to do good and profit in addressing this problem. Both sectors are just pulling their heads out of the sand. Yet, there is significant work being done by small entrepreneurial start-ups, non-profits, individual artist, scientists, inventors, and just dreamers and outsiders.
In the traditional Environmental Movement, a new era of collaboration with cultural and artistic activists has become a worldwide call to urgent action with the goals of changing public opinion in this country and abroad about Global Warming issues. This has spilled out to become a full-fledged political-environmental-cultural activism that has succeeded in capturing the imagination of individuals throughout the country and the world.
The film "An Inconvenient Truth" is a perfect illustration of how the film discipline allowed Al Gore to achieve a powerful communication of the issues as never before with all the speeches of his political career.
The group of artists represented here creates inspired works that make strong contributions to the development of contemporary art in the Americas. Together, they represent a great mix of ideas and approaches that are becoming a critical mass of activism and capturing the imagination of the world. Like others in activist art movements, these artists are not shrinking flowers. Some are operating on a political level, others use Public Art, or Guerrilla Art methods against the government and corporate hegemony of denial and profit-minded procrastination. Some are working in related disciplines, others are working within systems that wish to see change, and some are simply putting across important conceptual ideas. They all serve as emphatic arguments in the development of the discourse on the future of the planet, including those pesky brown fields, or other scary situations in your neighborhood.
– Adolfo V. Nodal. Los Angeles.