To be published in the August 2008 Issue of ALARM Magazine

by Daniel Tucker

If in the last ten years you’ve traveled under the auspices of attending a lefty rally, protest, or conference, or you’ve spent time in a community center, a crusty punk group house, a union hall or a progressive bookstore, then you’ve probably seen some of the graphic arts distributed by justseeds.org. One particularly popular set of posters is the Celebrate People’s History series, organized by Justseeds founder Josh MacPhee. These posters, highlighting hidden and obscured histories of social movements, from the abolition of slavery to ACT-UP, show up in the most surprising and diverse contexts. In public school classrooms, they serve as the graphic curriculum equivalent to Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, whereas in the social centers and bookstores of today’s leftist and sub-cultural movements, they serve as a constant reminder of the roots of struggle and of significant battles for emancipation and justice.

Justseeds was started in Chicago in 1997 and was initially conceived as a distribution platform for MacPhee’s artwork (which included an assortment of stenciled and block prints, zines, and the people’s history posters).

Carlos Fernandez of Chicago Jobs with Justice was one of many activists that encountered this work in the streets, on tables at political conferences, and on the walls of social-movement centers. He reflected, “In my encounters with the work spread by Justseeds, I realized that art’s role in political struggle could be bigger. It has offered valuable commentary, but by politicizing its production—the costs, the collaboration—it could also show how to put the ideals we voice into creative practice. I saw this in lots of small but important ways: how it was made, where it appeared, how it got into people’s hands.”

Over the years, Justseeds gained street cred and notoriety amongst a diverse set of young teachers, community organizers, contemporary artists, and graffiti writers. As this happened, MacPhee took steps to build stronger networks in his new milieu of left-leaning artists (specifically the low-budget producers like print makers and graffiti writers). His organizational aspirations found inspiration in the late ’80s Boston-area punk scene and various anarchist, prison solidarity, and anti-racist networks in the ’90s.

According to MacPhee, “Networks and organization are not simply tools to be more efficient or successful, but the building blocks of creating a new world. Our current society is structured to make us feel like atomized individuals, alienated from others and ourselves. This makes us more vulnerable to the massive amount of corporate and state propaganda we are bombarded with daily. By building organizations and communities where we try to really connect, understand, and support each other, we can build the collective tools necessary to both live our lives for personal self-fulfillment as well as change the larger society so that all will be free to do the same.”

MacPhee was doing the legwork to cultivate a new community through the facilitation of such ambitious projects as the Celebrate People’s History poster series (which now has posters made by over forty artists from across the globe and can be subscribed to like a magazine), the Stencil Pirates book (in its fifth edition from Soft Skull Press), the Street Art Workers (SAW) network of printmakers who produce coordinated campaigns, and several incarnations of the Paper Politics exhibit with over 200 printmakers.

Simultaneously, there were other movements and organizations that were emerging and changing the state of independent culture and politicizing young people. This time period saw a proliferation of art collectives from the Critical Art Ensemble and Yes Men to the BeeHive Design Collective and the No RNC poster project. Diverse communities of cultural producers and political organizers came together with events such as the Drawing Resistance traveling exhibition (organized by Sue Simensky Bietila and Nicolas Lampert, now a member of Justseeds), the Department of Space and Land Reclamation convergences, and a wide range of locally oriented and anti-war exhibitions.

One of those projects was the No RNC Poster Collective, which developed around a protest against the Republican National Convention (RNC) meetings in 2004 in New York City and eventually morphed into a regular and consistent group called Visual Resistance (VR). For several years, VR was responsible for networking and documenting street artists and activists throughout the city and developed such ambitious projects as the Ghost Bike memorials to bikers killed by cars. The group’s blog was the critical counterpart to a growing industry of slick graffiti websites and coffee table books—they offered a space for people concerned with content and ideas in addition to having a general interest in public space and unsolicited public art. It was graffiti with a message. Several members of VR met MacPhee as he started to gain more attention on a national scale and through the networking and exhibition projects he was initiating.

As Justseeds continued to expand, it outgrew MacPhee’s home office in Chicago. In 2004, he connected with the folks at the then-thriving and now-deceased magazine Clamor, for whom he had previously produced graphics, and they took over his inventory and mailorder. This arrangement only lasted two years before Clamor had financial problems that forced it to stop production. The bank foreclosed Clamor’s online store, which was the “backend” of several small businesses (one of the largest being Justseeds) that went down with it.

After slaving away unpaid to distribute ideas and organize artists, now was the test to see who was listening. Following a plea to his list of e-mail subscribers, MacPhee received over 80% of the funds needed to stay afloat in just three weeks. In his next e-mail, MacPhee offered thanks to the donors, writing, “It’s been amazing to have so many people offer help, and enlightening to realize how few places there are to get interesting, intelligent, and political art.” He also used this occasion to warn fans of Justseeds that there were changes in the future—changes for the better—and to not forget the project while it went into a hiatus for several months to reorganize.

Unbeknownst to fans and supporters, MacPhee was in talks to combine Justseeds with a network of individual artists (mostly printmakers and graffiti artists) and the Visual Resistance group. In the fall of 2007, the “Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists’ Cooperative” was formed. The collective’s initial e-mail newsletter read: “Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists’ Cooperative is a community of artists who have banded together to collaborate and sell their work. Our website is not just a place to shop, but also a destination to find out about current events in radical art and culture. Our blog covers political printmaking, socially engaged street art, and culture related to social movements.”

Composed of over a dozen artists living in five states, JS/VR Artists’ Cooperative is a diverse bunch capable of doing more work in more places that MacPhee ever could have accomplished on his own. The aesthetics of JS/VR reference the baby-boomer era as well as the 1930s, but the group’s varied composition results in a much more diverse aesthetic than the left has seen in one place in recent memory. The influences come from historical social movements as much as from youth cultures like punk and hip hop.

Speaking about the networking potential of working in a group, JS/VR member Nicolas Lampert explained, “All these contacts expand the reach of Justseeds. Of course, being a decentralized co-op also allows each artist to focus more on the city/region that they operate out of, which has been great for developing new projects and for tabling local events. We have also divided the tasks of running the co-op, so that the workload is shared.”

Though some of the members are self-taught, others went to art school to be trained and have had recognition in the commercial art market. Still, what primarily ties these artists together is their commitment to engage audiences through distribution and dissemination. Some may use street posts and walls, whereas others distribute via snail mail, zines, and T-shirts. They see a direct relationship between audience and distribution, which is the result of spending years participating in sub-cultures that are invested in their own networks and audiences.

The cooperative’s Web store only carries the creations of members that work to keep it afloat—thus making it a worker-run company. Every month there are new posters and graphic projects being added to the store. The blog is increasingly becoming an online hub for anyone interested in the intersection of art and politics, and it places a particular emphasis on street art, graphics, posters, and collectives. One can also find reports of the members’ travels, as well as tons of calls for participation in art shows, publications, and campaigns. The calls to action are a characteristic that is especially important to this crew, because it wants to build stronger and more functional networks of socially engaged artists. The site creates an entry point into a world that is gaining prominence and promise—a world where art makers are talking, collaborating, merging, and working. The story of Justseeds from old to new is inspiring for those of us that believe in cooperation—and in the role that cultural production plays in envisioning the world more like we want it to be.

For more information:
www.justseeds.org or www.myspace.com/justseedscooperative

Originally published in Polvo Magazine in Spring 2005

Can a Mickey Mouse stop being a Mickey Mouse and start being public art? This is the basic question that has recurred for me over the last few years of City of Chicago sponsored fiberglass public sculpture projects beginning in 1999 with ‘cows on parade’, when 322 ‘artist decorated’ life size cows were scattered throughout tourist centered areas of the city. The ‘CowParade’ brand of public art has spread to over 30 cities all over the world, spreading the gospel of ‘fun’ and ‘accessible’ public art. Pascal Knapp originally produced the blank cow template, and the Cowparade Holdings Corporation (the group who founded and manages the projects) is involved in collaborating with various local governments to solicit artists to decorate the cows. Corporations are invited to sponsor a cow, which means one of two things:
(1) The company pays for the artist to produce original decoration for the cow
(2) The company pays for the artist to decorate the cow with a design of their choosing.

This model has transformed the nature of public-private partnerships in relationship to global public art trends. Many cities feel that they need ‘cows on parade’, in a similar way that they need a building designed by Frank Gehry to compete with other global cities – allowing groups like the Cowparade Holdings Corporation to circumvent local residents desires by appealing to cities competitive and tourist-centric tendencies. The extent to which corporations can dictate the content of the project is significant of trends in public art for many years, and is a paradigmatic example of the decline of the public sphere that is experienced through intense privatization of so many areas of life.

In the summer 2001, The City of Chicago unleashed it’s second run of fiberglass outdoor sculpture under the name “Suite Home Chicago”, referencing the famous blues song “Sweet Home Chicago” and taking the form of life-size living room furniture suites (couches, reclining chair and TV sets). While inspired by ‘cows on parade’ this project was initiated separately from the efforts of Cowparade Holdings Corporation, and featured nearly 500 ‘suites’ in similar tourist-centered areas of Chicago. This time around however, there was going to be a citizen initiated public reaction. Recognizing the pitiful excuse for public art to be on par with decorating parking meters and the significant contradictions of living room suites supported with publicly funded space and resources being directed towards tourists while Chicago residents experience a massive shortage of affordable housing and public spaces to actually rest, a group of Chicago artists and activists decided to intervene.
The city of Chicago has a messy track record with housing related issues, and the artistic gesture of tourist centric living room suites was ripe for an intervention. Growing out of the April 2001 city-wide campaign to take all space in the city of Chicago for the citizens who live, work and play in it, under the name “the Department of Space and Land Reclamation”, this anonymous group of concerned citizens were deeply engaged with the politics of public space.
The public response that was generated by this group was intended to complicate the message of the Suite Home Chicago project. By covering the furniture in cardboard shacks, the homeless proof furniture would become housing (homeless ‘proofing’ public spaces has been a trend since the 1970’s book Defensible Space blew-open a string of theories and practical plans for design and architectural policing techniques in urban areas). The well-built wood frame shacks featured a welcome mat reading “Sweet Home Chicago” and the sides were covered in statistics about displacement of public housing residents in Chicago along with an oversized image of mayor Daley’s face. The project was intended to explicitly correlate the connections of the mayor to homelessness and gentrification in Chicago neighborhoods, while attacking ‘official’ public art trends and spending.

Like many fall 2001 cultural and social events throughout the world, this public intervention was sidetracked and altered by the events of September 11. For reasons of security and safety, the group was not able to perform such a direct action in downtown Chicago without fear of violent repression or arrest. The streets were covered with police and security was on high alert. Additionally, activist energies were going into quick response for racist attacks on mosques and the coming war in Afghanistan.
After regrouping in December 2001, the project needed to shift. The challenges faced included:
1>the Suite Home Chicago furniture had been taken off of the streets, and auctioned off to raise money.
2>would the already-built shacks have to be thrown out because without the furniture suites?
3> Were people ready to start talking about local issues like housing, or were they to distracted by the military action in Afghanistan?

There was much debate about the ability for the intervention to go on, many people involved with the project doubted the efficacy of putting out the shacks into a different context. Eventually it was decided that an appropriate way to get rid of the shacks that had been built, while still making a gesture in the direction that was originally intended would be to put the shacks on some publicly owned land that was being developed or sitting un-used. After some research, it was discovered the possibilities that existed in intervening in city owned land were vast, considering that there are over 60,000 vacant lots that are owned by the city.

The final decision was made to place thirty of the shacks in a city-owned empty lot in west-town, along a busy morning commuter section of Elston, just north of Chicago Avenue. The site was situated near the train tracks and was surrounded by high-end condominium development. On December 2nd, a press release was issued and 10 individuals wearing orange construction vests approached the empty lot meeting several vans loaded with the wooden and cardboard shacks. At 4am, the lookouts were hardly necessary, but gave the group peace-of-mind while going through the near 15-minute installation process.

The projects initiators knew that the potential impact and efficacy were significantly limited after the projects changed target location. The shacks slowed down traffic during the AM and PM rush hours that see Elston turn into a busy commuting street. Many people got out of their cars and took photographs and walked through the shanty town that satirically juxtaposed the facts and figures from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, such as “18,000 units of public housing now slated for demolition — will displace 42,000 ” with the stenciled portraits of the Mayors face over the text “ Sweet Home Chicago” and “If you lived here you’d be Homeless.” While the correlation to the fiberglass “Suite Home Chicago” living rooms was subtle and easily non-recognizable, the appropriated language of the press release and the rough aesthetic of the stenciled shanty town come together to make a small-scale yet strong gesture of attack at the troubling housing trends in Chicago and the problematic and complicit role of the Cities mayor.

While this text does not focus entirely on the phenomenon of corporate sponsored public art, or even highlight a particularly effective response to that phenomenon – it is intended to outline some of the notes and ideas surrounding the development of one particular critical public art project and it’s evolution (for an in-depth read of corporate influence and intervention in the cultural sector – see “Privatizing Culture” by Chin-Tao Wu). If the city defines public art as Mickey Mouse or cows decorated with “eli’s cheescake” paraphernalia, then the residents of the city cannot depend on them to be the only source of public art. Only through unsolicited interventions, and citizen initiated mosaics, murals, graffiti, and sculptures can we start to imagine a public sphere for art that would allow us to understand the “public” part of what public art in Chicago can be. Because there may not be such a thing as public space in Chicago, contestational public art is a must.
Additionally, there can be many points made in support and in criticism of the Daley regime in Chicago, but the basis of my personal critique is a simple one- this guy does not HAVE to be mayor of Chicago for the next 40 years. To quote the Chicago Social Forum organizers “ Another Chicago is Possible”, and the first major step to getting there is for a regime change in 2007.

December 2, 2001 Contact: Bobbi Lott, Pioneer Renewal Trust

For Immediate Release
(312) 420-7416 Groundbreaking for New Housing Initiative on Monday, December 3, 2001 DALEY VILLAGE: THE GOOD LIFE IS BACK

Just about everyone in Chicago remembers the beautiful life. Single-family residences curled up next to spacious thoroughfares, with neighbors who said “Hello”. A community of diversity, with transportation and bustling business districts nearby. Acclaimed schools and gorgeous parks…is it the Chicago of yesteryear?

Daley Village is not just a new development. Named after one of the most notable leaders of our fair city, Daley Village is positioned to be one of the most unique living experiences available, at affordable prices for all.

Spacious single and multi-family residences with spectacular city views will offer a haven from the city chill. The homes, designed by top-notch architects famous for their attention to artistic details, all feature newly built walls and customized exterior decoration. Ample parking is also available.

WHAT: Groundbreaking ceremony for Daley Village, the newest housing initiative for low-income families

WHY: Low-income families need dramatically new and different housing opportunities. This initiative reflects the City of Chicago’s dedication to the shelter of its citizens.

WHERE: The first Daley Village test site, at 920 N. Elston Ave., two blocks north of the intersection of Elston and Milwaukee Avenues.

WHEN: 10:00 a.m., Monday, December 3, 2001

WHO: Daley Village is a collective effort of the City of Chicago, the Pioneer Renewal Trust development group and Housing Illinois, an organization dedicated to exploring affordable housing options for all in the Land of Lincoln.

Daley Village Notes
Power Brokers:
-Richard J. Daley, Mayor 1955-1976
-Richard M. Daley, Mayor 1989-present
[Economy:]
-Illinois department of employment security (IDES) estimates that between 1976 and 1990, Chicago lost more than 150,000 manufacturing jobs, leaving a lot of trained laborers unsuited for life in the new economy and in need of completely new training
-In 1990 manufacturing only accounted for 20% of the work force and has been in steady decline over the past 15 years. Coinciding with this shift was the gaining of 178,816 service jobs between 1970-1984. (Betancur, J.)
-T.I.F. Tax Increment Financing was brought about in 1977 through the Illinois General Assembly
In 1999 17 of 20 of the City’s most financed TIF Districts were in the Loop
[Land:]
Chicago Loop: 7×7 Square blocks in the eastern party of the city.

Originally Published in Clamor Magazine Issue 29, 2004

Michael Wolf admits that what he does is essentially the same thing that everyone else does. Informally sharing resources among family and friends is something that most people do just to survive, cut costs, or save space. A year ago Michael, an artist living in Chicago, started the NCAAV (the Network of Casual Art Audio Visual department) which lends out a small pool of good quality A/V equipment like video projectors and cameras to “out-of-pocket initiatives run by artists and activists, people whom I admire and whose work I want to support.”
Asked about the motivation for starting the NCAAAV equipment lending library Wolf says, “I wanted to meet new people.” Mike had been an artist working in fairly conventional ways for a while, making “pictures hung on walls.” “I really felt like that way of working was coming to a dead end on some level, and I thought about finding some way to expand my associations. I thought that a way to meet those people and participate was to play a supporting roll in the culture that interested me.” Essentially what Mike gets out of providing a free service to artists and activists in need of audio/visual equipment is the opportunity to help strengthen a community of activist/artists, the possibility of chance encounters with interesting artists, and the occasional free ticket to a community theatre event.
The work of NCAAV, and many other similar projects, is part of a long history of small and subversive groups of artist/activists creating their own ways of sharing information, skills, and ideas through informal and non-commercial networks . In the 60’s and 70’s there were tool libraries and neighborhood technology groups which advocated for inner-neighborhood sustainable living. More recently, everything from zine libraries and discussion groups to skill-sharing events have been popular, proving helpful as artists and activists continuously try to find ways to build their communities..
A “platform” is an initiative which helps to foster/create/enable other initiatives. For the purposes of this article we are focusing on the small scale autonomous services, not to be confused with the social services or product services provided by the government and the communication industry. Like events in punk and activist communities spawned by the DIY (do it yourself )ethic, platform projects attempt to create situations that build alternatives to profit-centered, impersonal, and unethical methods of exchange. Instead, they foster alternative economies where sharing, cooperation, collaboration, bartering, and/or gift-exchange are the systems at work. The platform created by these projects is not the literal physical space or stage for exchange seen in the banks and institutions that flourish under capitalism. They are more conceptual and virtual spaces where creative exchange occurs, spawns more exchange, and continuously expands. Platforms are projects that help projects help projects.

Graphics Platforms and Reproducible Art

Rini Templeton dedicated her whole life to creating easily reproducible artwork primarily around Central American struggles, she called it “xerox” art. Her thirty-year history of radical graphic art production created some of the most easily-recognizable and familiar images for social justice and have continuously been reproduced copyright-free on placards, shirts, flyers and the occasional tattoo. The book The Art of Rini Templeton, in both Spanish and English: Where there is life and struggle was created as a reproducible portfolio of graphics and was intended to further disseminate Templeton’s graphics to a broader audience for use in political campaigns.
The book is out of print, and Rini passed away in 1986, but the website created by her foundation (www.rinijart.org) continues to distribute her work for free. The website’s format is not uncommon these days, Sites using downloadable materials for use in political campaigns, particularly anti-Bush campaigns, have proliferated in recent months. For instance, see the download section of the rncnotwelcome.org site or the pictures of street art collected at www.stopbushproject.com. This mode of information collection and dispersal is reminiscent of an earlier, more centralized New York-based initiative of the 1980s called Political Art Documentation/ Distribution. PAD/D wanted to encourage and share the many political street graphics of the early 1980s, as well as serve as an archive and a resource.
Artists and activists have always found ways to spread graphics, images, content and slogans to create a visible presence in the world and more engaging forms of resistance. The methods, though not the strategies, pioneered by artists like Rini Templeton and collectives like PAD/D has shifted with the growth of the Internet. The ideas are very much the same even though the tools have been updated.

Web Tools

Platform projects make a lot of sense in the virtual world. This is partly the case because of the so-called democratic characteristics of the web. Anyone can have a personal website, blog or email address and broadcast their message to the world.
The relatively short history of the web is filled with examples of individuals and collectives using the internet as a way of advancing issues of social justice, cultural expression, and freedom of information. Perhaps the most obvious example is indymedia.org . Begun as a means to allow activists to post news and updates during the Seattle WTO protests in 1999, Indymedia is now the world’s largest all-volunteer organization, spanning every continent with sites and subcollectives doing much of the maintenance to keep it running. The open publishing format that makes Indymedia possible is called Active. Active can be distinguished from most open source/ publishing applications in that its creators are explicit about its intended use towards the goals of political action and social justice. Active software enables anyone to publish their news stories or announcements on Indymedia.org anytime through their local Indymedia site or to visit another cities Indymedia and post announcements and news. In addition to indymedia, Active has been used by several other similar initiatives in Australia, where the software originated.
With similar goals in mind, Mute magazine, a London-based publication dedicated primarily to the intersections of culture, activism, and new technologies, has recently launched a web project called OpenMute. According to their website, this web platform was created in response to the growing number of “powerful, free online tools become[ing] available,” and the fact that “individuals without relevant technical skills are often unable to independently engage with them.” OpenMute responded “by making a selection of trusted tools available from one, easy to find, web location.” Basically what OpenMute provides is an easy to use, pre-designed (but still flexible) web site which can be obtained mostly for free by art and activist groups (though some packages cost a small fee). These feature the latest open source community building tools, allowing the site owner tailor his or her site to meet their specific needs. The content can be changed or added using any computer, anywhere that has internet access. The kinds of community building tools that are available include: News publishing, Wiki (a “collaborative” software that allows multiple users to both post and edit each others texts), photo galleries, group calendars, links and forums. Think of openmute as the yahoo.group for radical cultural workers.

Projects that help produce other projects can produce, proliferate, and
document rich and complex lineages of radical culture without clear beginnings or endings.The projects mentioned in this article all exist differently
and produce different ends. However, each attempts to provide us with
the means to achieve similar goals: enabling small pockets of
political and cultural resistance to communicate and to perform more successfully the projects we are already involved in and to expand those efforts into larger communities. When there is a commitment to building radical culture and resistance, these platforms only help us expand in the right direction.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/

www.active.org.au

http://www.stopgostop.com/nca/ncaav.html

http://www.openmute.org/

more about Rini Templeton http://www.riniart.org/