Art and U.S. Elections 2004

It's no secret that Americans of every stripe are mobilizing this year. There's a lot at stake in the November 2004 elections, and activists on the right and left are organizing and propagandizing at an unprecedented rate (at least for this generation).

Billionaires for Bush

The right, of course, stands to lose the White House and the Congress in November, so it's understandable that they will use their prodigious resources to do what they can to keep the ship of state floating in their direction.

The left is famously less financially endowed, but spirit is there in abundance. Daily news revelations about the implementation of U.S. foreign policy have set off alarm clocks across the nation. And the current administration's apparent secrecy and mendacity have lent potent fuel to conspiracy theories inflaming the Internet and the globe.

Artists are politicized as they haven't been in decades, and are stoking the fire with songs, plays, visual art and multimedia events as well as art and music downloadable over the Web. We wanted to let you in on some of the art activism in motion right now. While there is and always will be a lot of peace and antiwar activity in the arts, we'll concentrate here on artists organizing around the fall elections.

Artists are working in multiple ways. Some are allying with large coalitions, some are working through small organizations, some are commercial artists working in the media and some are out there all alone.

The Big Show in the Big Apple

Poster art by Camille for RNC Not Welcome

Arts in Action group of RNC Not Welcome [www.rncnotwelcome.org/downloads.html] is part of a collective of New Yorkers opposed to the selection of their city as the site of the Republican Party Convention. Artists have donated free downloadable flyers, posters, labels and graphics (and directions for making wheatpaste), available on the Web site. Most picture President Bush, with taglines like "Elect a Madman You Get Madness." Arts in Action has created a clearinghouse for information about marches and rallies being organized around the convention. They have a listserv (norncarts) sign-up on the Web. https://secure.mediajumpstart.net/mailman/listinfo/norncarts

Billionaires for Bush [www.billionairesforbush.com] is a media and street-theater campaign focusing on Bush's economic policies. They want to "help turn the fatcats out of power in November." Dressed like the fatcats themselves, the satire group will hold “corporate vigils” for the rights of multinationals in New York during the Republican National Convention and stage a “Million Billionaire March” for their cause, “advocating for the rights and interests of people of absolutely fabulous wealth.” Shouting slogans like “Leave no billionaire behind" and “Hands off Halliburton,” they sport names like Robin Eublind, Ionna Bigga Yacht and Phil T. Rich. Their hilarious Web site offers "position papers" like "Legislation: A Lucrative Investment" and an online store stocking CDs ("The Billionaires Are in the House"), fashion kits (1 top hat, 1 money tie, 1 pair white gloves, 1 cigar, 3 Billionaires for Bush buttons, 1 bumper sticker and 1 stack of money for $19.95). Available bumperstickers read "Blood for Oil," "Corporations Are People Too," "Free the Forbes 400," "We're All in This Together, Sort Of" and, of course, more.

Artwork by Eric Drooker from Not In Our Name

Music and Art to Oppose War and Oppression is part of the Not In Our Name project [www.notinourname.net], which was initiated to "strengthen and expand resistance to our government's course in the wake of September 11, 2001." While Not in Our Name "doesn't participate in campaigns or electoral politics," it is organizing "More than a Million in the Streets When the Bush Team Meets" around the Republican National Convention, and the gathering is endorsed by a large number of artists organizations. The Web site offers downloadable posters and flyers for the mobilization, and the Music and Art page is a treasure house of MP3s, image galleries, speeches (like Tim Robbins at the National Press Club), and a long list of links to arts activist Web sites.

NY, America [www.nyamerica.org] is an organization of artists producing the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues & Ideas, an annual citywide festival that will be inaugurated this summer to coincide with the Republican National Convention. The Imagine Festival will host over 100 events in all five boroughs from August 28 to September 2, 2004, including forums and readings at major universities and libraries; a "pre-premiere" screening of a new movie by John Sayles; performances of Sophocles' "Electra," Urban Bush Women's "Raise Your Hands to Struggle," John Malpede's Megaphone Project and Eve Beglarian's "Forgiveness Project"; poetry slams at Dance Theatre Workshop and the Bowery Poetry Club; and more exhibitions, documentary film and political theater.

"Urban Bush Women: Are We Democracy?" voter education/voter registration project

Urban Bush Women [www.urbanbushwomen.org] is a New York performance group working toward increasing voter registration in its community. Led by choreographer Jawole Will Jo Zollar, UBW will initiate a series of voter education/voter registration projects called "Urban Bush Women: Are We Democracy?" at their Summer Institute, held July 16-25 in partnership with Long Island University, Mark Morris Dance Group, The YWCA of Brooklyn and Brooklyn Information and Culture. Institute participants — local and national dance artists, cultural workers, social activists and community members — will collect stories focusing on why people vote and why they do not vote, as well as the history surrounding the hard-won voting privileges for women and African Americans. A performance piece will be created from these stories and presented publicly.

…and in Boston

Democrat Howard Dean gets a Backbone Award

The Backbone Campaign [www.backbonecampaign.org] is a Vashon Island, Washington-based grassroots organization of national scope, seeking to "rescue the Democratic Party from irrelevance." The artist group has created an 80-foot backbone puppet to take to the Democratic National Convention in Boston in July, which will appear in the streets of Boston, traveling horizontally above the heads of an accompanying parade of Americana. Each vertebra will symbolize a piece of the "Platform With A Backbone" which will be communicated in the form of banners, flags, leaflets and chants. The Backbone will wind its way through the streets arriving at the 2004 Democratic National Convention to bring moral support to the efforts of progressive delegates and activists from around the country "who want to wrench the party out of the hands of corporate interests and rescue it from irrelevance." Backbone presented Howard Dean with a Backbone Award in Seattle after the announcement of his new organization DemocracyForAmerica.com

…and in the Funny Papers

Comic strip artist Aaron McGruder and characters from "Boondocks"

Artists who create newspaper comic strips, like Gary Trudeau ("Doonsebury"), Wiley Miller ("Non Sequitur"), Berkeley Breathed ("Bloom County") and others, are angry and outspoken about the war in Iraq and the elections, says Brian Braiker in Newsweek (5/31/04). The names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq appeared across six panels in "Doonesbury" on Memorial Day. That strip and "Get Fuzzy" have characters who have lost legs in the war. Aaron McGruder ("The Boondocks") "just likes to stick it to the Bushies," says Braiker (Huey dreams that Bush returns Iraq to Pottery Barn. He's told, "You break it, you own it"). Comic historian Bill Blackbeard says artists are mad, and their anger shows: "You'll see more of the same for a while." And they are being censored at an alarming rate, "I've never sensed such an outright panic on the part of editors," says Breathed. "One or two angry letters will send many of them scurrying — and cutting." Example: In the May 14 "Non Sequitur," a young girl calls the U.N.'s Minister of Stinking Messes to come over and clean up her room. The minister asks his secretary to make sure the call isn't coming from the White House. The punchline was excised from The Sacramento Bee in what the paper's ombudsman says was a "production error." You can link to many of these artists at http://www.Ucomics.com

…and Out There

Artists United to Win Without War

Artists United to Win Without War [www.winwithoutwarus.org] is a large group of celebrity artists (Matt Damon, Ron Howard, Susan Sarandon…) chaired by actor Mike Farrell and producer Robert Greenwald. They are allied with the antiwar Win Without War coalition of national organizations, opposed to the war in Iraq based on Bush's claim of weapons of mass destruction. Their primary act has been to lend their celebrity to a prominent ad campaign by Win Without War and MoveOn that pictures Bush, lists his war claims and brands him "Misleader." While this is not directly aimed at the election, it may impact it.

The Creative America Project [www.creativeamerica.us] is Tom Tresser's effort to get artists to vote in 2004 and run for office in 2006. Largely a move to create a more fruitful climate for creativity in the U.S., Creative America is sponsoring a series of events this year like "How To Create Candidates Who Will Love and Support the Arts" at the National Performing Arts Convention in Pittsburgh in June 2004.

The National Hip-Hop Political Convention [www.hiphopconvention.org/] is a gathering that will take place in Newark, N.J., in June 2004 to vote on, adopt and endorse a political agenda for the Hip-Hop generation. Delegates must register 50 people to vote. The Web site includes a riveting essay called "Anti-War Organizing Among People of Color" By Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez.

"Read My Apocalips" by Robbie Conal for Post Gen's "Be the Revolution"

Post Gen [http://postgen.com] is an art collective offering "political empowerment through public art." They recently launched "Be The Revolution," a trio of posters designed by artists Robbie Conal, Shepard Fairley and Mear One, "in time for the presidential campaign." Each pictures President Bush overlaid with text, respectively: "Read My Apocalips," "Or Was It Hug Babies and Drop Bombs?" and "Let's Play Armageddon!" These posters are available from the Post Gen Web site.

Punkvoter [www.punkvoter.com] is a coalition of bands, musicians and record labels determined to educate, register and mobilize 500,000 young progressive voters. The effort is led by record labels, artists like Jello Biafra and Kris Novoselic and bands like Blink 182, Foo Fighters, Sleator-Kinney, Social Distortion and many more. They offer a DVD called "Rock Against Bush," music downloads and flyers offering reasons to hate Bush and Punkvoter stickers.

Jim Hightower on the Rolling Thunder Tour

The Rolling Thunder: Down Home Democracy Tour [www.rollingthundertour.org] is a series of grassroots get-togethers or "Chautaquas with pizzazz and festivity," as well as seriousness of purpose — a sort of traveling democracy organizing festival sponsored by the Tides Foundation and endorsed by an all-star lineup of progressive organizations like Friends of the Earth and Utne Reader. Partnering with artists and community groups across the U.S., Rolling Thunder piggybacks on concerts and gatherings of all kinds, offering workshops like "Reclaiming Our Elections."

…and all over

Hundreds of galleries and theaters are busy mounting visual and performing arts shows around the elections in most states. Many are participatory open shows. Just to point to two:

SPARC's open call for the Bushit show in September

SPARC (Social and Public Art Resources) [sparcmurals.org/bush/bushit2.jpg] in Venice, Calif., will open a show called "Bushit: A Creative Response to the State of Democracy," calling for work that will "contemplate, investigate, interrogate, reveal the unseen, tell the truth, provide creative commentary, invent election paraphernalia and celebrate freedom of expression." It goes up September through November. The Manhattan artspace Exit Art [http://www.exitart.org] issued an open call for a show called "The Presidency," slated to debut in September. "The office of the President of the United States is one of the most visible positions in the world," says the call. "We are asking artists to put into a visual balance or a visual feeling their concept of the presidency. … Who is this individual who every 4 or 8 years changes? How does that change the image the country has of itself? How does it affect how other countries see us? Who is your ideal president? Who runs the country? What is the structure of the government? …" Proposals in all media are accepted through June 15, 2004.

… and Over There

"W 2004" Poster from W Stuff

GeorgeWBush.com [www.georgewbush.com], the official site for the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, is the best we can do for the other side. There you can find "W Stuff": Download free screensavers and desktop wallpaper illustrating Bush displaying "Compassion." Visit the The George W. Bush Online Store for Support President Bush & Our Troops yard signs, Bush-Cheney visors, W the President tote bags, Viva Bush caps, Bikers for Bush bumper stickers, Law Enforcement for Bush t-shirts, W stands for Women rally signs, Farm-Ranch Team cowboy hats, W '04 Interstate travel tumblers, Bush-Cheney '04 baby bibs, rompers and lowball glasses, and a pen with W's signature on it made out of Texas mesquite — all crafted by the artists of the Spalding Group, who can provide marketing solutions for your Republican campaign or business.

Linda Frye Burnham is a co-director of Art in the Public Interest and the Community Arts Network.

Original CAN/API publication: June 2004