A Study of For Freedoms: New Ways for Artists to Participate via Traditional Mediums
A thesis presented to
the faculty of
the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University
In partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Arts
Rachel K. Harper
May 2019
© 2019 Rachel K. Harper. All Rights Reserved. 2
This thesis titled
A Study of For Freedoms: New Ways for Artists to Participate via Traditional Mediums
by
RACHEL K. HARPER
has been approved for
the School of Art + Design
and the College of Fine Arts by
Samuel T. Dodd
Lecturer of Fine Arts
Matthew R. Shaftel
Dean, College of Fine Arts 3
Abstract
HARPER, RACHEL K., M.A., May 2019, Art History
A Study of For Freedoms: New Ways for Artists to Participate via Traditional Mediums
Director of Thesis: Samuel T. Dodd
In 2016, the first artist-led super political action committee (PAC), For Freedoms, was formed by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman. Two years later, the super PAC had transformed into a non-partisan platform for civic engagement and was generating the largest creative collaboration in U.S. history, The 50 State Initiative. This thesis seeks to analyze For Freedoms as art organization and impart examples of how it provides structure for contemporary artists to engage and participate within American society. The research focuses on For Freedoms’ connection to the theoretical concepts of participatory culture, media convergence, and collective intelligence by means of reimagining uses for traditional mediums such as billboards and town halls. The research also showcases how For Freedoms provided space for the attempted reworking of classic
American iconography. This thesis is meant to communicate how an art organization can help foster a system and space for artistic collaboration, connection, and creative participation by artists with other artists and the general public, ultimately helping to create a more diverse and inclusive conversation around what it means to be American.
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Dedication
I dedicate this paper to my parents, Matthew and Shauna, who have always believed in me, encourage me to work hard, and inspire me to continue to dream – no matter what.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge my appreciation for the members of my committee and their unique contributions to my graduate experience. The encouragement from Dr.
Marion Lee for me to join the program, the thought provoking and inspiring ideas from
Dr. Samuel Dodd, and the kindness and sincerity from Dr. Dori Griffin combined to make my time at Ohio University memorable and gratifying. I’d also like to recognize Dr.
Jennie Klein and Dr. Marilyn Bradshaw for their guidance and support during my undergraduate studies at OU, along with my fellow art historian friends – Eric, Candace, and Sarah – for their encouragement and comradely companionship during the writing process.
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Table of Contents
Page
Abstract ...... 3 Dedication ...... 4 Acknowledgments ...... 5 List of Figures ...... 7 Intro: The Four Freedoms to For Freedoms ...... 9 Part 1: Collaborating for Connection...... 14 Formation of Art Organizations ...... 14 Collective Intelligence via Imagination ...... 19 Part 2: Repurposing a Traditional Medium ...... 27 Billboard Space: Available for Art ...... 27 The 50 State Initiative and Media Convergence...... 30 Part 3: Success in Participatory Culture ...... 36 Art Organization as Intervention ...... 36 The 50 State Initiative: Town Hall...... 38 Participation for All ...... 43 Participation Beyond the Physical ...... 45 Conclusion: For Freedoms for Each Other ...... 49 Bibliography ...... 61
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List of Figures
Page
Figure 1 Emily Shur with Hank Willis Thomas, “Freedom of Worship,” 2018. (Photograph) Cover image for “TIME,” November 26, 2018. © Emily Shur Photography...... 51 Figure 2 Norman Rockwell, “Freedom of Worship,” 1943. (Oil on canvas, 46" x 35 1/2") Story illustration for "The Saturday Evening Post," February 27, 1943. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. © SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN...... 51 Figure 3 Norman Rockwell, “Freedom of Speech,” 1943. (Oil on canvas, 45 3/4″ x 35 1/2″) Story illustration for “The Saturday Evening Post,” February 20, 1943. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. ©SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN...... 52 Figure 4 Norman Rockwell, “Freedom from Want,” 1943. (Oil on canvas, 45 3/4″ x 35 1/2″) Story illustration for “The Saturday Evening Post,” March 6, 1943. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. ©SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN...... 52 Figure 5 Norman Rockwell, “Freedom from Fear,” 1943. (Oil on canvas, 45 3/4″ x 35 1/2″) Story illustration for “The Saturday Evening Post,” March 13, 1943. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. ©SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN...... 53 Figure 6 Dustin Aksland, "Portrait of Eric Gottesman and Hank Willis Thomas.” Date unknown. (Photograph) © Dustin Aksland Photography...... 53 Figure 7 Sergio O'Cadiz Moctezuma, Detail of "Fountain Valley Mural," 1974-1976. (6' x 625') Destroyed 2001. Photographer unknown. © O'Cadiz Family Private Collection. 54 Figure 8 Emily Shur with Hank Willis Thomas, “Freedom of Speech,” 2018. (Photograph) Featuring comedian, actor, writer, and producer Cristela Alonzo (standing). © Emily Shur Photography...... 54 Figure 9 Emily Shur with Hank Willis Thomas, “Freedom of Worship,” 2018. (Photograph) Featuring American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Attorney Amir Whitaker (center). © Emily Shur Photography...... 55 Figure 10 For Freedoms, 50 State Initiative Interactive Activation Map, September 2018- present. (Screenshot of Map © 2019 Google, INEGI, ORION-ME) © 2018 For Freedoms Federation...... 55 Figure 11 Barbara Kruger, "Untitled (Surveillance is Your Busy Work),” 1985. (Billboard) Photographer unknown. Photograph virtue of Billboard: Art on the Road by Laura Steward Heon, Peggy Diggs, and Joseph Thompson. © 1999 MASS MoCA...... 56 Figure 12 GRAN FURY, "Welcome to America," 2018. This billboard for The 50 State Initiative was located in Norfolk, Virginia October 27, 2018 to December 21, 2018. Photographer unknown. Image © 2018 For Freedoms Federation...... 56 Figure 13 Sable Elyse Smith, “Untitled (We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” 2018. This billboard for The 50 State Initiative was located in the historic neighborhood of Jackson Ward, Richmond, VA from November 12, 2018 through February 3, 2019. Photographer unknown. © Sable Elyse Smith...... 57 8
Figure 14 Michael Bierut and Kai Salmela (Pentagram), “Untitled (This Bus is an Assault Vehicle in the Fight Against Global Warming),” July to September 2008. (Bus ad for Green Patriot Posters campaign via the Canary Project) Photograph virtue of Edward Morris. © ...... 57 Figure 15 Sable Elyse Smith, “Untitled (We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” 2018. Gallery 1708 post via Instagram, January 15, 2018...... 58 Figure 16 Sable Elyse Smith, “Untitled (We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” 2018. Gallery 1708 post via Instagram, January 18, 2018...... 58 Figure 17 Sable Elyse Smith, “Untitled (We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” 2018. Gallery 1708 post via Instagram, January 19, 2018...... 59 Figure 18 California College of the Arts, "Embrace Your Freedoms/Know Your Rights: A For Freedoms Town Hall," October 25, 2018. (Film) Video footage virtue of YouTube via CCA Exhibitions. Hank Willis Thomas (standing) leads the audience in an activity. . 59 Figure 19 California College of the Arts, "Embrace Your Freedoms/Know Your Rights: A For Freedoms Town Hall," October 25, 2018. (Film) Video footage virtue of YouTube via CCA Exhibitions. Audience members take part in a role-playing activity led by The National Lawyers Guild...... 60 Figure 20 For Freedoms, 50 State Initiative logo, 2016. © 2018 For Freedoms Federation...... 60
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Intro: The Four Freedoms to For Freedoms
In bold white text, the November 26th, 2018 cover of the American weekly news magazine, TIME, displayed the question Who Gets to Be American? atop a photograph created by contemporary artists Emily Shur and Hank Willis Thomas through the art organization, For Freedoms (Fig. 1).1 The image is a reworking of the painting Freedom of Worship 1943 by iconic American artist Norman Rockwell from his four-part series,
The Four Freedoms for Which We Fight, which he created to depict the four universal freedoms as articulated on January 6th, 1941 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt: freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear (Fig. 2-5).2 The series gave rise to support for the allied World War II effort by expressing national ideals, and were mass-produced and widely distributed by The Saturday Evening Post during
February and March of 1943, becoming an integral part of F.D.R.’s ‘Four Freedoms’ campaign.3 Eventually, millions of copies were printed and distributed by the government
1 The cover story Who Gets to Be American? was written by Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner, Vietnamese- American novelist, Viet Thanh Nguyen, in which he describes how American symbols, such as the flag or national anthem, hold little value for him because, for him, they divide as much as unify. This speaks to the necessity and difficulty of diverse, yet unifying national iconography. Rockwell’s images were an attempt to accomplish this. 2 Lester C. Olson, “Portrait in Praise of a People: A Rhetorical Analysis of Norman Rockwell’s Icons in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’ Campaign,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 69 (1): 15-24. Thomas Buechner’s book, Norman Rockwell: A Sixty Year Retrospective, contains a second version of “Freedom of Speech,” which was created specifically for The Metropolitan Museum. It is different from the version originally used for posters and published in the (Saturday Evening) Post. According to The Metropolitan Museum Art collection archive, the painting in their possession is one of several preliminary studies based on Rockwell’s favorable impression of a town meeting he attended in his home town. This is proof that social gatherings can serve as artistic inspiration and helps support why Rockwell’s art encouraged the use of the town hall format as something For Freedoms could implement in order to invite artistic participation today. The painting is ‘not on view,’ but you can access a thumbprint version by visiting: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/488687. 3 Lester C. Olson, “Portrait in Praise,” 15. Olson explains that the national ideals were expressed through the images simply, but ambiguously. Rockwell’s images were readily understandable by the American populace based off of the basic institutions referenced: the church, the work ethic, the family, the community, the education system, and the democratic process. Yet, Rockwell combined these basic ideals with diverse symbols to amplify their appeal.
10 and private agencies all over the world and the Treasury department toured the four originals to sixteen cities where they were seen by an estimated 1,222,000 people and were used in selling $132,999,537 worth of war bonds.4
At the time of their creation, Rockwell’s influential art encouraged people to make sense of the war and substantiate the depicted scenes as reference for American ideals. The term ‘freedom’, what it stands for and what it means, remains a hotly debated topic today, so it is not a surprise that the classic series, supposedly portraying the ultimate depiction of being free, yet evidently leaving many American’s and their unique experiences out of the picture, would become influential again in 2016, inspiring the formation of the aforementioned art organization responsible for the recent TIME cover photograph: For Freedoms. Founded by contemporary artists Eric Gottesman and Hank
Willis Thomas, the organization was originally formed as an artist-led super political action committee (PAC) committed to getting artists more involved in civic life (Fig. 6).5
Super PACs in the U.S. are organizations that privately raise money to ultimately influence the outcomes of elections and passing of legislation, most commonly at the
4 Lester C. Olson, “Portrait in Praise,” 15. Additionally, according to Olson (p.15), The New Yorker magazine article describes how Rockwell’s images were also displayed in “schools, post offices, Elks clubs, ration-board offices, Sunday schools, and railroad stations.” R. Jarman, “Profiles U.S. Artist, New Yorker, 21 (March 17, 1945), 41. In 2018, The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts organized Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms, the first comprehensive traveling exhibition devoted to Rockwell’s series. The project includes multiple ways for people to participate, including an interactive map showing where conversations are happening around the world in response to Four Freedoms. Find out more at: https://rockwellfourfreedoms.org/. 5 Kickstarter and Kickstarter. "Behind the Billboards: For Freedoms on the 50 State Initiative." Medium.com. June 15, 2018. https://medium.com/kickstarter/behind-the-billboards-for-freedoms-on-the- 50-state- initiative-dbffd9a90a89. The artists initially started For Freedoms as a Super PAC because they saw them as ‘super problematic’ political advertising agencies. They realized the political process was based largely on money laundering and realized they could get creative with the system. While still a Super PAC, in 2016, For Freedoms turned the Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea, Manhattan into a political headquarters. They displayed art in a traditional manner, but also held activities, such as inviting a former prisoner of 24 years involved in the Prison-to-College Pipeline as scholar-in-residence. He gave tours and also talked about solitary confinement, of which he had endured for ten years. 11 federal level. No longer a super PAC, For Freedoms has developed into its current state as For Freedoms Federation, Limited Liability Company (LLC), a strictly non-partisan platform for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action.6
In 2018, via the platform, the co-founding artists launched a nation-wide project:
The 50 State Initiative. The original idea for the project was to work with billboards, which arose from the desires of the artists’ to “…work in a more public way.”7 Their belief was that if artists’ voices replaced advertising across the country, public discourse would become more nuanced. The project grew to revolve around various traditional mediums – including billboards, town halls, and yard sign activations - and would eventually become the largest creative collaboration in U.S. history having activated sites in all fifty states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Going forward, my use of the word traditional, in reference to a medium or space, should be understood as having an accepted established authority. The 50 State Initiative Toolkit, the guidebook geared towards advising their collaborative partners, stated "…we seek to use art to deepen public discussions of civic issues and core values, and to clarify that citizenship in
American society is defined by participation, not by ideology.”8
American media theorist Henry Jenkins’ ongoing research, The Civic Imagination
Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, in which he defines civic imagination as the capacity to imagine alternatives to current cultural, social, political and economic
6 "About For Freedoms." For Freedoms. https://forfreedoms.org/about/. 7 Kickstarter, "Behind the Billboards.” Both Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman work within themes of identity, politics, and popular culture. Harnessing the ‘everywhere-ness’ of the billboard along with its large scale, the artists wanted to start conversations about freedom and equality. They funded the project through 52 separate Kickstarter campaigns (one for each state, plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico). 8 Ibid.
12 conditions around the world, is based around his beliefs that the ability to imagine a better world is crucial to being able to create one and that an individual must have the ability to see themselves as a civic agent of change, yet part of a larger collective – acting as an equal participant within a democratic culture.9 His dedication and current efforts to shed light on the importance of creativity and imagination via the public sphere – whether physical or virtual – are rooted in his earlier, foundational intellectual theories of a participatory culture and media convergence. The public spaces that For Freedoms enter into and create via their projects expose the necessity for participation and media convergence within our current visual landscapes, which are cluttered by advertisements and profit-driven messages. By providing space for a participatory culture to thrive and media convergence to take place, I argue For Freedoms organizational system allows for the creation of a more nuanced, question-provoking approach to public communication via art versus advertisement.
Jenkins and I share a desire to promote imagination, creativity, and democratic collaboration with an underlying emphasis on the goal of equality amongst creators and participators. Additionally, his research on the appropriation of stories, artworks, films, games and other media into new versions or completely different things (like fan art in which an artist imagines their own version of a story, film etc.) is complimentary to the way For Freedoms appropriates spaces like billboards, town halls, and online sites. In this paper, via study of For Freedom’s photographic project, billboard, and town hall, I assert that For Freedoms provides a structure in which contemporary artists can engage
9 The Civic Imagination Project. "Civic Imagination Theory." USC. Accessed April 1, 2019. https://www.civicimaginationproject.org/theory.
13 productively with each other, participate in American society, and take action, not by inventing a whole new artistic ideology or practice, but rather by rethinking and altering already established traditional mediums in ways best suited to their skills and desired outcomes.
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Part 1: Collaborating for Connection
Formation of Art Organizations
For Freedoms was born out of the realization of a critical disconnect between contemporary artists and the political schema in place today by which people belonging to the partisan extremes with drastic viewpoints often take center stage in public spaces – from literal political event space, such as arenas and parks, to advertising space like billboards covered in directed political propaganda – overriding those with subtler approaches and more nuanced opinions. For Freedoms approach to create space for voices being left out in this divisive environment, particularly artists, was to use these spaces, typically allotted to partisan groups, and allow for artist-led creations via billboards, exhibitions, town halls, lawn sign activations and other events. It is not the first artist-led organizational structure that emerged from a goal of getting artists more involved with each other and the larger realm of American society. Like Thomas and
Gottesman, artists have sought to find ways to bring attention to ideas apart from, and often opposite to, mainstream ideals, in order to create a more inclusive society.
For example, in October 1971, at California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in
Valencia, California, artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro welcomed the first class of women into their Feminist Art Program (FAP).10 FAP was designed by Chicago and
Schapiro as a program exclusively for women art students to be led entirely by female
10 Paula Harper, "The First Feminist Art Program: A View from the 1980s," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society10, no. 4 (1985): 762-81. doi:10.1086/494182. This was not the first feminist teaching for Chicago. From 1970 to 1971 she also had a course at California State University in Fresno, California in which she experimented with radical educational techniques. During that time is when she met Lacy. For a more intimate interview with Lacy describes her experience with the development of feminism in California and the California art world of the early 1970s reference: Oral history interview with Suzanne Lacy, 1990 Mar. 16-Sept. 27. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. 15 instructors and was revolutionary at the time, but fitting in the context of the late 1960s in
California where social and psychological experimentation was taking place, women were taking part in social development movements, and feminism was thriving. When recounting her experience, Schapiro expressed that the hardest part of the process was breaking traditional art-making habits and that most program-related crisis was related to;
“making something happen against the grain. We felt we were just as important to ourselves and to the world – now this is going to sound very pretentious – as all the scientists gathered together at Los Alamos felt when they were making the atom bomb.
We felt that way. We saw ourselves as instruments of history.”11
From November 1971 to January 1972, the program was engaged in the
Womanhouse collaboration. For the project, students were provided a seventeen-room house in downtown Los Angeles to alter into an experiential environment that conveyed women’s participation within their customary domain – the home. Like For Freedoms made use of spaces typically used for activities outside or exclusive of the arts to consider the idea of freedom and the role artists play in American democracy today, FAP utilized a space typically allotted to domesticity to explore and engage with the larger idea of what it meant to be ‘woman’ in the late 60s and 70s. One month was dedicated to eight-hour shifts of physical labor completed by the women in order to make the space usable. While this kind of labor was resented by many students, Chicago saw the importance of such effort, “A community requires bonding and identification. At Cal Arts, the group was bonded by shared work. A model based on work and professional learning can transcend
11 Paula Harper, "The First Feminist., 763.
16 the personal, which is where many women’s groups get bogged down.” Womanhouse, the first large-scale public feminist art installation, a project born out the collaborative structure provided by a new kind art organization (FAP), declared itself an art exhibition
– despite mixed reviews and critics – ultimately proving that women artists could indeed express their personal experiences publicly. Activities like political sign making events, public forums, and artist-led talks were all part of the way For Freedoms created their own community bonding. With this sort of bond, established through participation, comes trust, for both the art organizations and artists involved.
Suzanne Lacy was one of the students of FAP, and is among the first generation of artists who began making art founded on public participation. In 1973, she was involved in The Woman’s Building, during which she did a project called Self-Other.
First, she had to figure out something she cared deeply about and do a performance around that topic. Then she had to reflect on the issue and relate it to a large social issue or phenomenon and make a more pronounced statement about it. Finally, she had to actually go out into the real-world and find someone who was identifiable to her topic and complete a project about that. Regarding the process, Lacy said, “That sort of movement between the self and the other and the constant reflection about what that means on a social or political level, to empathize with an experience, seems fundamental to this process.”12 The process she is referring to is her artistic practice, which was largely influenced by the structure provided by FAP’s structure. The introspective nature of the program by way of physically connecting with others outside of a studio or
12 Elyse A. Gonzales, Pablo Helguera, Suzanne Lacy, and Sara Reisman. 2018. “Suzanne Lacy and Pablo Helguera in Conversation.” Western Humanities Review 72 (3): 23. 17 traditional art space is the same sort of technique employed by For Freedoms in their participatory events such as sign making and town hall meetings.
Today, Lacy’s work, which often had the goal of empowerment or change in a community, is considered ‘social practice’ or ‘socially engaged’ art, but those terms are relatively new, starting from the mid-1990s onward. The goal of The 50 State Initiative is engagement and connection: a social practice. Lacy stated, “Terminology, such as social practice, helps us move from one evolution of the practice to the next. I think terminology announces and frames new forms of inquiry, something fundamental to the experimental practice.”13 Yet, recognition and support for artists like Lacy, by way of grant funding or opportunities created by curators for projects, was once very limited. For example, New York based Mexican artist, Pablo Helguera, who has written extensively about socially engaged art and is considered one of the foremost experts on the subject, and in a 2018 interview had the following to say about the formation of his artistic practice:
Most of the people in performance and social practice (we didn’t call it that in the ‘70s of course) began outside of museums. I exhibited in museums, as well, but in a retrospective or documentary manner. Basically, my practice was developed within personal and social relations, political structures, organizations and institutions, and what we called the “media surround.” There were no helpful museums raising money, curators directing projects, and so on.14
In 2017, Lacy (with anthropologist Pilar Riaño-Alcalá) and Helguera were part of the exhibition, The School House and the Bus: Mobility, Pedagogy, and Engagement at
13 Elyse A. Gonzales, “Suzanne Lacy and Pablo H.,” 18. 14 Ibid., 33. Helguera also addresses the difficult position of social practice within the art world expressing that artists like he and Lacy are always trying to balance what is visually appealing and interesting with social relevance. The balance of those demands is what he says they are still figuring out. 18 the Art, Design and Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara as part of the initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (PST: LA/LA). The project was the first to pair two prolific artists of the social practice movement. The project was comprised of installation, collage, sculpture, ephemera, photography, video, and documentation which served to showcase the overlapping themes found within their works: immigration, pedagogy, race, violence, memory, and social organizing.15
Similar to the widespread nature of The 50 State Initiative, PST: LA/LA initiative included a multitude of exhibitions, over seventy in total, located in southern California.
The project took place over four months, September 2017 to January 28, 2018, and explored the past and present of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with the city of Los Angeles. One of the exhibitions, ¡Murales Rebeldes! L.A. Chicano/o Murals
Under Siege, took place from Sept. 2017 until March 2018 at La Plaza de Cultura y Arte in downtown and east Los Angeles (Fig. 7). The work addressed the fact that because of the limited channels of communication available to Mexican-Americans during the late
1960s and 1970s, murals became an essential form of artistic response and public voice for the Chicano Movement.16 The utilization of the murals by Mexican artists seeking space to voice their opinions and experiences is not unlike that of the artists using billboards in The 50 State Initiative. Both projects showcase how public space, typically taken up by corporate messaging and imagery, can be reworked with art. PST: LA/LA provided the space for a history, that otherwise had no place to visually exist, to be
15 Suzanne Lacy. "The Schoolhouse and the Bus." SUZANNE LACY. http://www.suzannelacy.com/the- schoolhouse-and-the-bus. 16 "¡Murales Rebeldes! L.A. Chicana/o Murals under Siege." Exhibit | Pacific Standard Time. http://www.pacificstandardtime.org/lala/en/exhibitions/exhibit/view/Murales-Rebeldes.html. 19 highlighted and explored. Similar to For Freedoms, Pacific Standard Time, an initiative of The Getty, was a collaboration of arts institutions. While not linked nationwide, like
For Freedoms, but rather spread across Southern California, the idea behind the initiative was to provide a structure in which contemporary artists engage productively with each other, participate in society, and take action.
Collective Intelligence via Imagination
An immediate action Thomas took through For Freedoms was the artistic revision of the Rockwell series for which he enlisted photographer Emily Shur’s help. The images were Thomas’ own project within The 50 State Initiative which related back to of he and
Gottesman’s original motivation for developing For Freedoms. To help explain his involvement in the photo project, Willis stated, “(Rockwell) was one of the people who really shaped the iconography of America and our visual culture. There are a lot of people who are missing in those images.”17 The noticeable lack in diversity of both people and lifestyles in the original series was the driving factor behind the artists’ new project. They set out to create a more inclusive sampling of everyday contemporary
American scenes.
Who Gets to Be American? asks the TIME cover. Many Americans are asking the same question. Thomas and Shur’s photographs help to add a visual aid to the discussion.
The question itself is undeniably worth exploration in every sense, but I consider the images in relation to the idea of collective intelligence as presented by French
17 Lily Rothman, Norman Rockwell’s Vision of the Four Freedoms Left Some People Out. These Artists are Trying to Fill Those Gaps, TIME Magazine (October 12, 2018). 20 philosopher, cybertheorist, and media scholar Pierre Lévy.18 His idea is that virtual communities can take advantage of the knowledge and expertise of their members and, by doing so, potentially provide large-scale collaboration and contemplation. According to Lévy, “No one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity.”19 For Freedoms is a model example of how a system – an art organization – can establish space for collective intelligence to thrive. The platform connected Shur and
Thomas, and hundreds of artists and art organizations to each other through The 50 State
Initiative, operating beyond virtual realms, such as their principal website and affiliated social media sites, by utilizing real physical spaces.
Lévy believes that the future is a place where all will interact within a Cyber democracy – a planet-wide legal, judicial and governmental system – and maybe to a large degree that is true.20 Lévy sees collective intelligence as a new form of power that operates alongside the power of nomadic migrations, the nation-state, and commodity capitalism. Similar to Jenkins participatory culture, Lévy cites knowledge culture as a community emerging around the sharing and evaluation of knowledge.21 Lévy tends towards a future where reality is mostly virtual. Yet, I disagree, because there is a trending movement by many, especially within the art world, of disconnecting from media to reconnect with themselves through traditional mediums. That is not to say that art via virtual media will be lessened, but that I do not foresee traditional mediums
18 Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006. 19 Ibid., 26-27. 20 Pierre Lévy, “Collective Intelligence, A Civilisation: Towards a Method of Positive Interpretation,” International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society, Vol. 18 3/4 (2005): 193. 21 Pierre Lévy, “Collective Intelligence,” 296.
21 completely being absorbed into a cyber realm. The creation of ideas about how to connect with oneself has meant people are constantly sharing concepts and participating with one another to reach their sought-after results, and physical interacting has been one of the strongest factors in connection. An idea of Lévy’s that I do agree with is that artistic work is assessed by its ability to displace meaning.22 Thomas and Shur participated in this way. They meditated on Rockwell’s popular images that helped shape
American iconography and, together, imagined an alternative.
All four of Rockwell’s paintings for the series featured exclusively white subjects, except for Freedom of Worship, which included one person of color (Fig. 2-5). In the original, there are eight figures – four males and four females. The single figure of color, an elderly female, is situated at the top left corner, half hidden behind a middle-aged male’s profile. The entirety of her profile is incomplete with the painting stopping just shy of the tip of her nose and edge of her lips and chin. Two of her fingers are visible but her hands are discernibly in prayer position. A soft light highlights her face bringing life to the ridges in her lips and fine strands of her hair. Her gaze is forward and slightly downward. The size of the figure’s profiles become smaller the further back in space they occur within the image, therefore the aforementioned female’s head is the smallest as it is the furthest back.
Beyond the lack of racial diversity, there is an absence of disparity in age amongst the original figures as well. All of them look to be middle-aged and older. One white female situated fourth furthest in the foreground has the most youthful appearance
22 Pierre Lévy, “Collective Intelligence,” 195-196. In a provocative nature, he describes how the artist prays or meditates in the sphere of signs. He goes on to explain that information can change the meaning of a situation, so important information can change our way of seeing, hence art is a religion of information. 22 heightened by her wrinkle-free hands, braided hair, and nearly glowing skin. She is the only figure looking upwards, possibly signifying an innocent hopefulness that resides in the young that the elder, wiser figures no longer share. The objects within the scene are limited. The foremost figure holds a book, presumably a religious text, and dons a hat associated with the Greek Orthodox church.23 An elderly female, arguably the most centrally positioned, wears a simple gold wedding band and mother of pearl hair comb.
Finally, the youthful female holds a rosary.
In the new series, not only did Shur and Thomas imagine alternative images, but a different way of producing them as well. Their vision was realized by enlisting the help of others, fostering the possibility of art forged from imaginations beyond their own, fundamentally enacting collective intelligence fostered by the For Freedoms platform.
The two artists invited friends, associates, and even strangers to pose in their photographs which would ultimately include artists, immigrants, activists, and trans people (Fig. 8-
9).24 The project took place over two photoshoots in Los Angeles, California with over
100 participants including some well-known in the art world such as feminist Swedish-
American artist Michele Pred and Rujeko Hockley, curator at the Whitney museum of
American Art in New York.25
23 Lester C. Olson, “Portrait in Praise,” 18. 24 Lily Rothman, Norman Rockwell’s Vision of the Four Freedoms Left Some People Out. These Artists are Trying to Fill Those Gaps, TIME Magazine (October 12, 2018). Even with the new more diverse array of participants, in comparison to Rockwell’s cast, Thomas and Shur realized they could not contain America’s diversity in just four images – not even composites, so they ended up creating eighty-two. Sixteen of the eighty-two are available to view via Shur’s ‘Commissions’ portfolio. Access is available at: https://www.emilyshur.com/COMMISSIONS/FOUR-FREEDOMS/thumbs. 25 Sarah Cascone, “Rosario Dawson, Van Jones, and Others Star in a 21-st Century Remake of Norman Rockwell’s Famous ‘Four Freedoms’ Series,” ArtNet News, (November 02, 2018). Michele Pred states the following about her artistic practice, in which she assembles found objects – such as scissors, discarded cellphone charges, and knives - into installations or sculptures; “Each piece starts with an idea. The materials come afterward as I discover them.” By placing the seemingly normal objects into a new frame of 23
There are some elements in the new version, such as the arrangement of figures, that resemble the original, but there are more noticeable differences between the two than similarities. Such as the addition of an extra figure so that there are now nine instead of eight. Also, there is a more drastic variance between the ratio of males to females: in the new image, there are three males and six females, as opposed to the even four to four of
Rockwell’s.26 The most noticeable deviation from the original is the inclusion of numerous peoples of different racial backgrounds. There are at least six people of color, as opposed to the single one in Rockwell’s version. Lack of diversity of age is also addressed with additions of two evidently youthful females: one positioned towards the bottom right corner and one in the top left, giving the composition a nice balance age- wise.
Additionally, a greater variety of religious ornamentation is present. The largest profile, located at the bottom right, consists of a middle-aged male holding a religious book – just like Rockwell’s original male in Greek Orthodox clothing – but the new figure is a male of color and he wears no clothing items indicative of any certain faith.
This profile is followed by the aforementioned youthful female in the lower right corner and she is wearing a pink headdress commonly related to the Muslim faith and holding her hands in prayer position. Behind her is the profile of an elderly female of Native
reference, the collection functions as social and political commentary. Read more: Mija Riedel. Confiscated. American Craft Magazine, March 10, 2010. 26 It is not always important or correct to address the sex of peoples within an image, but for the purpose of making a statement in a contemporary political climate where gender issues are a hotly debated topic, and because I am looking at artists acting within a charged democracy, I find it is fitting. Also, I am comparing the image to one that was created in a time when gender norms were assumed and I think it important to showcase the artists’ choices to include more female figures in their new version – whether by absolute choice, or chance, it is worth noting the change.
24
American descent who wears a headband of red cloth with a strip of woven reed down the center. Clasped in her traditionally tattooed hands, is a smoking bundle of sage held together by a thin red twine. The smoke – possibly manipulated by a computer program – swirls in front of her face. She stares straight ahead with a look of determination. Behind her is a white middle-aged female gazing upwards, in a similar fashion as the original figure in that compositional position, with a blue and white cloth draped over the back of her head, and beyond her is a male wearing a white turban often associated with the
Hindu faith. The other figures have no discerning ornamentation, but are all displaying various forms of prayer.
In an interview with TIME, Thomas acknowledged that the new images created by him and Emily Shur could not possibly represent every person in America today, and realized that some people may have felt left out when viewing the image in magazine or billboard form.27 He explained that the important role the images play is that of helping to expand the cast of figures present within iconic American imagery.28 Sometimes a new critical eye is necessary. According to Carrie Lambert-Beatty of Harvard University:
…culture jammers are activists – typically but not exclusively young ones – who skeptically interpret commercial imagery, exposing the underlying ideological operations of icons, reworking them to produce critical commentary, or replacing them with alternative images.29
27 Lily Rothman, Norman Rockwell’s Vision. 28 Ibid. 29 Carrie Lambert-Beatty, "Fill in the Blank: Culture Jamming and the Advertising of Agency," New Directions for Youth Development, no. 125 (2010): 99. 25
The idea of culture jamming – a tactic employed by social movements to subvert mainstream media culture and institutions – fits snuggly with the concerns of For
Freedoms – politics, art, advertising, and civic life – and their desire to generate conversation and engagement by activating sites through artwork. Although rare, sometimes culture jamming is done by invitation. Illegal Art, founded in 2001, is a collective of artists with a goal to create participatory-based public art that inspires self- reflection, thought and human connection. The group did a project, Suggestion Box, in which the public was asked to make suggestions about anything they liked by placing them in the box. Later published in a book, the suggestions ranged from plans for civic programs to small helpful hints, and demonstrated the public’s creativity, humor, and ingenuity.
According to Lambert-Beatty, this showcases how culture jamming doesn’t have to mean a blocking of something, but can be meant as an invitation to play or jam.30
Though not reacting in an exclusively playful way to corporate commercialism and consumerism, but rather responding to and engaging with classic American iconography,
Thomas and Shur were nonetheless acting in the vein of culture jamming in a collaborative, inviting way by taking an iconographic image and reworking it. And unlike the often-times barely-legal actions of culture jammers, such as anti-ads created without permission from original creators, their recreations are legal and cross-generational and exist cross-media and reveal a more inclusive invitation. Rockwell’s originals were critically reworked to better represent our contemporary American reality, and they
30 Carrie Lambert-Beatty, "Fill in the Blank,” 109-110.
26 spread cross-media, virally (via social media) and physically (via traditional mediums – billboards and magazine).
Rockwell’s attempt to convey a scene where people from different faiths share in the act of prayer in their own unique ways peacefully was impactful at the time and makes for a dynamic composition.31 Yet, the content’s relevance to contemporary
America is what Thomas and Shur, via For Freedoms, were looking to address in their reworking of the series. The freedom to choose how to worship is an American right we still struggle to agree upon in the 21st century. Certain religious groups remain underrepresented and misrepresented in the media and within the larger realm of the political governmental structure in the U.S. This is where the importance of collective intelligence arises. The more respect and validity given to the multitude of voices existent within our country, the closer we can get to understanding one another. For Freedoms creates a space for this kind of collective intelligence to arise through art. By collaboratively reworking an iconic image, which existed in multiple traditional mediums as a former magazine cover and poster, For Freedoms demonstrates a way artists can exercise their imaginations and participate in democratic conversations, potentially helping us understand what it is to be American.
31 Lester C. Olson, “Portrait in Praise,” 22. According to Olson, “The values associated with the Four Freedoms in Rockwell’s paintings correspond to the associations in Roosevelt’s speeches, so Roosevelt’s speeches implicitly supplied the contents for Rockwell’s appeal. Thus, these paintings and posters were a positive example of what America should strive to protect and preserve. Even the titles of the paintings – “Freedom from Fear,” “Freedom from Want,” “Freedom of Speech,” and “Freedom of Worship” – are rhetorically functional. They are framing devices that evoke what the historian Robert Bellah called the “sacred scripture” of civil religion.”
27
Part 2: Repurposing a Traditional Medium
Billboard Space: Available for Art
By far, For Freedoms’ most ambitious project has been The 50 State Initiative which took place from September through November of 2018. The project aimed to use art as a means of encouraging broad civic participation, build a network of artists, arts institutions, civic leaders, and map the cultural and artistic infrastructure in the U.S.32
Financial resources were generated via crowdfunding by means of the American public- benefit corporation, Kickstarter.33 Within the collaborative project, they activated multiple sites within all fifty states, plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, as spaces for art. These activations included, but were not limited to: billboards, exhibition spaces, lawn sign activations, and town hall meetings. During the midterm season of 2018, The
50 State Initiative held over 600 concurrent decentralized public events across the country with over 250 partners making it the largest creative collaboration in U.S. history
(Fig. 10).34
By exploring the idea of repurposing a traditional medium into art space that can foster and promote artists’ ideas, we will specifically consider how the collaboration implemented the billboard. The large size, public location, and assumed role of a
32 For Freedoms. 50 State Initiative Toolkit. New York, NY: 2018. 33 About - Kickstarter, "Our Mission Is to Help Bring Creative Projects to Life," Kickstarter (2019). https://www.kickstarter.com/about?ref=global-footer. Kickstarter states, “Our mission is to bring creative projects to life. Kickstarter helps artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, and other creators find the resources and support they need to make their ideas a reality. To date tens of thousands of creative projects – big and small – have come to life with the support of the Kickstarter community.” This is another platform by which the ideas of participatory culture, convergence media, and collective intelligence can be applied. The fact that For Freedoms and Kickstarter are related both through the project, and structurally, will not be fully addressed in this paper, but I wish to make the observation known. 34 "Explore." For Freedoms. https://forfreedoms.org/explore/.The substantial number of partners – 250 – demonstrated the far-reaching capabilities of the project and allowed for an abundance of voices to be acknowledged. Furthermore, the extensive network of partners sparked national dialogue about art, education, commerce, and politics. 28 billboard as commercial space are enticing elements for artists to ultimately provide new ways of thinking and seeing to the general public. According to Laura Steward Heon in
Billboard: Art on the Road, highly successful artists such as Barbara Kruger and Les
Levine have realized the established authority of billboard space, employing it upwards of twenty times each throughout their careers (Fig. 11). She writes, “Often artists who have made numerous billboards, such as Levine, are committed to disrupting the flow of advertising from billboards to a passive audience by placing art in the path.”35 When artists seek a way to reach the public outside of white-walled galleries and museums, billboards offer a practical and effective alternative. Thomas and Gottesman successfully implement billboards into their organizational structure, but they are not the first to see potential in these spaces.
A traditional medium, with set rules and assumptions, implores innovation and transformation by artists interested in subversion, and the billboard format allows for direct dialogue between artists and the greater American public. For example, New York
City based activist artist collective, GRAN FURY, used billboards to maximize attention regarding AIDS from 1988 through 1995. One of their most controversial works happened to be two billboard posters, which they were almost denied the right to display at the 44th Venice Biennale. In the 1990 Women’s Art Magazine review of the show,
British art critic, Louisa Buck, describes the work and ensuing drama:
GRAN FURY’s contribution also consisted of posters: one showed a photograph of the Pope and castigated the Catholic Church’s views on sex and AIDS – “AIDS is
35 Laura Steward Heon, Billboard, Art on the Road a Retrospective Exhibition of Artists Billboards of the Last 30 Years; May - September 1999 (Cambridge, MA: North Adams, 1999), 9.
29 caused by a virus and a virus has no morals”: and the other depicted an erect penis and declared in strident black on yellow: “SEXISM REARS ITS UNPROTECTED HEAD
MEN/ USE CONDOMS OR BEAT IT/ AIDS KILLS WOMEN. It remains unclear whether it was the Pope, the penis or the proximity of the two that caused such offense in official circles.”36 Within the arts there has been, and remains, confusion and disagreement about what is and what is not considered acceptable and noteworthy artwork. An organization such as For Freedoms provides structure and purpose behind works that might otherwise be deemed disruptive or non-art by utilizing spaces outside of the traditional art realm of white-walled galleries and museums, allowing for messaging and imagery designed to evoke a questioning within the viewer, rather than persuade and prompt them to purchase something. GRAN FURY’s work, Welcome to America, was featured on a billboard in Norfolk, Virginia for The 50 State Initiative (Fig. 12). The image shows the text, Welcome to America: the only industrialized country besides South
Africa without national healthcare, surrounding a baby in a diaper, hand in mouth, looking innocently upwards. The billboard gets the message across that the viewer should be questioning why America is one of the two nations lacking in nation-wide healthcare without explicitly demanding a certain response. By rethinking and reworking within an established structure such as the advertising space of the billboard, For Freedoms shows
36 Louisa Buck, “See Venice and Die,” Women’s Art Magazine, no. 36 (September 1990): 4–6. Eventually, and inexplicably, the two posters were located in Verona, but when they eventually arrived in Venice the Biennale’s Director, Giovanni Carandente, declared that if they were exhibited, he would resign. After assorted Cardinals and Magistrates had been brought into the Arsenal building to inspect the offending objects and had deemed them not to be obscene or sacrilegious (but also not necessarily art). GRAN FURY’s posters went up and Carandente remained as director. (p.5)
30 how artists can effectively participate in civic discussions they may otherwise not be a part of.
The 50 State Initiative and Media Convergence
Regarding The 50 State Initiative billboards, I apply the idea of media convergence as set forth by media theorist Henry Jenkins, who defines convergence as
“A word that describes technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes in the ways media circulates within our culture.”37 He explains how the term can be applied to the flow of content across multiple-media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment they want.38 I relate this theory to The 50 State
Initiative by exchanging the idea of media with art, and demonstrate this through the following exploration concerning one of the project’s billboards.
Interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator Sable Elyse Smith was selected by curator Park Myers of the Richmond, Virginia based 1708 Gallery to create a billboard in partnership with For Freedoms for The 50 State Initiative in May 2018 (Fig. 13).39 The billboard debuted in the city’s historic neighborhood, Jackson Ward, which was one of the most important black residential and business districts in the U.S. by the beginning of the twentieth century.40 The image boldly reads, “WE WANT LAND, BREAD,
HOUSING, EDUCATION, CLOTHING, JUSTICE, AND PEACE,” in bubbly, bright
37 Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 282. 38 Ibid., 2. 39 Jayla McNeill, 1708 Gallery Uses Art to Advance the Conversation Around Historic Jackson Ward, RVA Magazine (January 24, 2019). 40 John G. Zehmer and Robert Patrick Winthrop, The Jackson Ward Historic District, Richmond: Dept. of Planning and Community Development (1978): 5. 31 pink comic-book-style lettering with black shadowing, overtop a white word bubble centered amongst curvy animated stripes of red, green, and yellow.41 (Fig) These words are not new, but rather were originally composed in the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point
Program created in 1966 as the tenth point.42
There are numerous examples throughout The 50 State Initiative where artists chose to rework historic images and quotes in a similar fashion, but Smith’s is especially relevant as the words still ring true today for the neighborhood in which they were placed. The words are strong on their own, but when allowed to have a physical presence in a public place with historical significance, they are able to take on a whole new life and provide a catalyst for curiosity and communication around the subject that, although apparent, was not being so publicly addressed by the neighborhood. Furthermore, both theoretically and figuratively, Smith’s reworking of text into an artistic image that relies on an established comic book aesthetic demonstrates convergence from one traditional medium to another by art. The popularity of using traditional media reinforces the idea that artists need not create a completely new concept, but can be just as effective, if not more so, by building off of pre-established material that is already politically charged.
The artists involved in the project had to imagine new uses for materials that would be understandable and effective in our contemporary society.
According to Smith, the words chosen were meant to address a “specific historical moment” that “continuously has reverberation” and to promote the collective we.43 These
41 Park Myers, “LOOKHere: For Freedoms and Community Conscience – Sable Elyse Smith,” LookSEE, January 28, 2019. https://lookthensee.com/blog/2019/2/1/forfreedoms. 42 Jayla McNeill, 1708 Gallery. 43 Ibid. 32 political words, fused within the bright colors and lively cartoon-like design create a pop- political message. The viewer is drawn in initially by what seems to be a cheerful message – possibly something humorous, considering the text bubble element that is often related to comic strips – but the words are loaded with history and importance, especially relevant to the location of the billboard. The effectiveness of the image is therefore two-fold; aesthetically pleasing to attract while also relaying a jolting textual message. The artist wanted to bring widespread attention to Jackson Ward – which has faced setbacks in success such as the low-income housing projects implemented in the
1950s, the dislodging of homes and business by Interstate 95, and the destruction of various buildings and properties – by creating an image that would promote and encourage conversations about reclamation, inclusivity, cultural preservation, and continuous education within the community.44 The 50 State Initiative billboard created space for the artist to accomplish this and, according to Myers, the project became a
“generator of important, necessary conversation” and “prompted new and continuing alliances between prominent institutions in the neighborhood, specifically the Historic
Jackson Ward Association (HJWA) and 1708 Gallery.”45
In Designing for Social Change, NYC based designer, Andrew Bern Shea, discusses the importance of dialogue in communities and cites billboards as a tool for creating exchanges. For example, a 2008 campaign in Cleveland, Ohio used large bus posters as part of a design campaign against global warming. The campaign was cited by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as one of the best public art projects in the city in 2008, and
44 Jayla McNeill, 1708 Gallery. 45 Park Myers, LOOKHere. 33 the designs were selected for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial exhibition in
20ll, ‘Why Design Now?’ (Fig. 14).46 Like The 50 State Initiative’s goal of creating a more nuanced approach to the hot topic of a midterm election and the democratic process in America, the Green Patriot Posters project in Cleveland provided and encouraged artistic intervention in public spaces in response to a world-wide divisive topic – global warming. Both projects’ use of art in place of advertising demonstrates billboards as a viable tool within the capitalist culture framework for artists, art organizations, and their communities to establish new conversations and share ideas. In the aforementioned example of Richmond, Virginia, not only did For Freedoms allow space for the creation of public art, it also enabled the joining of artistic organizations – which in the greater scheme of things is crucial in order for the arts to thrive in the future. Just as artists benefit from support of one another, so do arts organizations.
The 1708 Gallery billboard’s physical presence and resulting public interest led to a traditional community discussion at the gallery. Entitled, Community Conscience: A
Discussion on Public Art, Communication, and Inclusion in Jackson Ward, the event took place January 19, 2019 and included a panel of three: curator Park Myers, commissioned artist Sable Elyse Smith, and President of the Historic Jackson Ward
Association, Janis Allen.47 Eighty people gathered together to discuss the impact of public art – such as The 50 State Initiative – and the possible ways contemporary art could better serve the public. The “activity of inclusion” was a topic of discussion with
46 Andrew Bern Shea, Designing for Social Change: Strategies for Community-based Graphic Design (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), 20-25. 47 "1708Gallery." Sable Elyse Smith: For Freedoms – 50 State Initiative, 1708 Gallery, A Nonprofit Space for New Art | Richmond, VA. https://www.1708gallery.org/exhibitions/exhibition-detail.php?id=97. 34 the outcome being the notion – “as neighbors, we can be better neighbors.”48 The 50 State
Initiative created the space for this sort of discussion to happen amongst community leaders and members because it allowed space for artwork to generate discussion and participation.
The 50 State Initiative collaborative project with 1708 Gallery started with the unveiling of art on a traditional billboard and led to a discussion where a crowd came to the agreement that art organizations can be assets by becoming catalysts for a broader level of inclusion amongst members of their communities. This idea was brought to life by the example set by the For Freedoms physical billboard. However, between those two events, the billboard had another existence as well – it was also being circulated online.
The gallery used the billboard artwork to promote both the work itself and the community discussion via their Instagram account and on their home website.
The art was posted on Instagram through the gallery account, 1708gallery, three separate times. The image was different for each post (Fig. 15-17). The first iteration dated January 15th, 2019 was of the original digital artwork, while the second (January
18th) was a tighter crop of that same image, and the third (January 19th) was of the actual billboard. The final image was ‘liked’ by Hank Willis Thomas himself, which demonstrates how the creator of the project can interact with partners, and help create potential energy around their works, without needing to be there physically. This also provides proof that the original traditional format of the billboard can serve as a starting point for artwork which can then inspire conversation and provide content for connection
48 Park Myers, LOOKHere.
35 online by digital format. Helguera cited the helpfulness of the “media surround” for him and other artists working in the 70s, especially because of the lack of support from the art world.49 At that time, media like mainstream radio and television programs alongside underground newspapers and magazines helped to shape ideas and connect.
Established artists like Thomas interacting on Instagram to help generate attraction and excitement around another artist’s work, albeit for his project, is an example of today’s media surround in action and how artists still benefit from such a structure. From the artist’s imaginative recreation of information from one medium to another (writing to artwork), to the traditional billboard space format, to site for discussion, to digital informational and invitational image, the artwork was able to travel cross-media via convergence. In contemporary America, where connection is so important yet the struggle to find common ground is ever present, For Freedoms produced a cross-media, cross-discipline structure that supplies multiple ways for people to create, converse, and learn with a structure formed around artistic intervention.
49 Elyse A. Gonzales, “Suzanne Lacy and Pablo H.” 36
Part 3: Success in Participatory Culture
Art Organization as Intervention
The term “fake news” has been a popular topic of contention in the U.S. for some time now. Whether a supporter of the term or not, its widespread use in relation to matters such as the sensational nomination of our current president or issues like gun control and gender roles cannot be argued. It has been employed satirically and righteously helping to fuel the palpable sense that the American public is being misled consistently by once-trusted traditional media outlets such as newspapers and cable news channels. The idea that the greater public cannot trust those in charge of them is not a new phenomenon (feel free to fill in an example of atrocious historical government or religion led genocide or war here), but the conditions in which we find ourselves now, technologically and socio-culturally, result in a unique environment for those intent on sharing a message. The fact that not only the government, but also traditional media – suppliers of information – are being scrutinized harshly by the public actually makes way for, and even demands, grassroots and participatory media intervention.
By participatory intervention, I refer to the creation and facilitation of media that allows people to engage with it, which generates a culture which allows for individual involvement. A participatory culture, according to Jenkins, is one in which fans and/or consumers (and in my case, citizens) are invited to actively aid in the creation and circulation of new content.50 With the public’s trust in the media being tested frequently, there is need for a public platform in which individual voices are allowed the chance for expression. As artists often embody or represent the fringes of society and do not often
50 Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 299. 37 hold mainstream positions of power, a space for them to communicate effectively is vital.
For Freedoms’ self-proclamation as a platform actively involved in participatory intervention is largely due to their being artist-founded and art-based with artists creating content, meaning they are already aware of the need for creative intervention. As artists, they know this means getting creative and using their imaginations. I argue that For
Freedoms’ flexibility and openness to a participation-based structure ultimately makes them an effective example of how artists can make and use art in our uneasy contemporary media landscape riddled by profit driven corporate interests and power driven political gains.
To describe how this particular project functioned within participatory culture, I reference the “Dimensions of Participation” checklist developed by Christopher Kelty of the University of California in Los Angeles that Jenkins refers to in his 2015 Masterclass at India Culture Lab in Mumbai.51 The first important factor Kelty points to is whether or not the project provides opportunities for informal learning. According to Jenkins, in order to be considered valuable within a participatory culture, For Freedoms should enrich learning for everyone who gets involved with the project.
51 ‘Masterclass with Henry Jenkins,’ Godrej India Culture Lab. Accessed February 11, 2019. https://indiaculturelab.org/videos/library/special-events/masterclass-with-henry-jenkins/. On July 10, 2015, The Godrej India Culture Lab (GICL) hosted an exclusive masterclass on the digital tomorrow with Jenkins. The talk was followed by a discussion on what his ideas mean for India. According to GICL, the organization started in 2011 as a space for cross-pollination of ideas, and acts as a catalyst to challenge existing notions of culture and encourage dialogue and experimentation through innovative programming. Their events are free and open for all. Find out more about their organization via: https://indiaculturelab.org/about/.
38
The 50 State Initiative: Town Hall
Let us look at one example – a town hall – to attempt a break-down of Kelty’s list.
The town hall format, much like the billboard, is a traditional medium, albeit in this case a physical meeting space. For Freedoms choice of repurposing the format to fit their needs is a quality example of utilizing a traditional medium to create space for new artistic expression. On October 25, 2018 California College of the Arts (CCA) in San
Francisco held a For Freedoms town hall entitled “Embrace Your Freedoms/ Know Your
Rights” A For Freedoms town hall is explained as the following in The 50 State Initiative guidelines, designed to instruct partners on how to participate in the project: Our Town
Halls are forums for inclusive public conversations that are artist-led, can be inspired by one of the Four Freedoms (fear, speech, want or worship), welcome many kinds of voices and points of view, and provoke active, critical listening.52
Within the instructions there were no required formats, topics, or rules given for the events that could take place in the town hall, but there was a recommendation that artists be given the opportunity to highlight their expertise in the environment. There was also the (optional) request for participants to document and share their town hall experience via video and/or pictures with For Freedoms. This lack of regulation could be seen as risky, but giving some trust and ownership over to contributors generates more opportunities for exploration and learning, both for the hosts of the event and for the people who show up. As many artists tend to shy away from or completely disregard rules (often due to curiosity) the pliant structure For Freedoms provides is particularly smart. Arguably, this enticed and allowed for more participation than a rigid structure.
52 For Freedoms. 50 State Initiative. 39
The CCA event was based around this question: “Would you know what to do if your rights, or the rights of others, were being violated?” Let us look at how For
Freedoms participatory format allows there to be the opportunity for learning.53 First, For
Freedoms co-founder, artist Hank Willis Thomas, was in attendance and gave a heartfelt introductory speech. As he is an alumnus of CCA, there was an intimacy as he addressed the crowd and implored them to interact with each other. This was one of the first participatory acts of the event. I will note here, after watching quite a few town hall event videos produced for The 50 State Initiative, I realized that Thomas was not employing ice-breaking strategies to simply put the crowd at ease, but rather he was working towards his ultimate goal of breaking down social and cultural barriers.
Often artists have employed unconventional strategies to communicate larger ideas and interrupt standard interactions. In 1964, Yoko Ono performed Cut Piece in
Tokyo and again later at Carnegie Hall in New York. The performance consisted of her allowing audience members to participate by inviting them to approach her as she sat submissively on a stage and cut off pieces of her clothing. It was an act of both symbolic and actual assaults that lasted until she was nearly naked. “An adolescent boy came up and amputated her bra, by which point most of the audience were possessed by fear and anxiety and realized they were trapped by the piece.”54 The inspiration for this project came from the legend of the Buddha, especially the fact that he reached enlightenment when he allowed a tiger to devour his body, which Ono saw as a parallel between the
53 YouTube. Embrace Your Freedoms / Know Your Rights: A For Freedoms Town Hall. December 03, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WAYtWkYV5k. Fortunately, CCA provided footage of the event which allowed me the next-best access to actually attending the event itself. 54 Marcia Tucker and Marcia Tanner. Bad Girls; Bad Girls West. New York, NY: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1994. P. 62. 40
Buddha’s selfless giving and her own, as she combined dangerous confrontation with poetry, spirituality, personal vulnerability, and laughter.55 Ono was on a mission to disrupt the typical interactions people experience and generate an authentic reaction.
Similarly, Thomas sought authenticity through participation, and there was laughter at the CCA town hall when he asked the people in attendance to, if willing, hold a near stranger’s hand and repeat after him as he recited aloud a conversation from his past where he was impacted by a stranger (Fig. 18). This act could seem to be a small gesture, but as bodies moved and laughter started, there was a real change in the atmosphere, noticeable even through my laptop screen. There were awkward faces, giggles, and several smiles. Creating an environment that moves past formal interactions to authentic communication is an integral part of participatory collaborations and socially engaging artwork. Helguera discusses this fact in regards to his time as an educator at the
Guggenheim Museum when Relational Aesthetics (as coined by Nicolas Bourriaud), and artists working under that umbrella were trending: “…the kind of participation that went on in certain exhibitions or pieces that these artists were making was not really deeply engaging with an audience, and that was one of the first moments where I felt that I wanted to make work that truly was about interpersonal relationships and conversations with individuals, and not simply nominal participation.”56 The mere creation of a
55 Marcia Tucker and Marcia Tanner. Bad Girls, 62. In “All That She Wants”: Transgressions, Appropriations, and Art,” Linda Goode Bryant writes, “…when art explicitly and directly responds to prevailing social conditions, its function and sphere of influence take on added dimensions. The role of the artist changes as his/her public, political and artic voices are elevated and merged into a single voice, each part having equal import and measure. Ono’s calculated vulnerability allows for her role to take on this socially spurred participatory weight. (p.98) 56 Elyse A. Gonzales, “Suzanne Lacy and Pablo H,” 20. In his book, Relational Aesthetics, Nicolas Bourriaud defines the term as, “A set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.” (p.113) You may find more about his theory in his text. I found this version most useful: Bourriaud, 41 situation where authentic engagement can take place, generated by For Freedoms, is successful to the greater idea of human learning and participation. The 50 State Initiative town hall provides a welcome space for artists to communicate in the ways they choose, yet under the umbrella structure of a popular event throughout the history of American democracy: the town hall.
After this impromptu physical interaction, Thomas expressed his gratitude for people choosing to be at the event in support of the art platform. He explained that For
Freedoms was constructed to highlight the ways people chose to come together, help people to understand the attributes we have in common, and address the importance of people being in physical proximity to one another in order to make an impact. All of which relate back to participation. He eventually handed over the mic to someone else and the event officially began. The idea is that to be functioning in a participatory way, the creator must not have full control, which brings me to the next bullet point of Kelty: involvement in decision making and goal-setting. In this example of collaboration, CCA chose the venue, the topic, and the presenters. Thomas was merely a small part of it.
Ultimately, the event fostered a space for marginalized voices. One speaker expressed how they had never said aloud, even to themselves, the truth of their experience as an immigrant living in the U.S. In an age where loneliness and the feeling of being disconnected is leading to higher rates of depression, disease, drug use, and suicide, an event that generates artistic participation and taps into the vein of humanity
Nicolas, Mathieu Copeland, Simon Pleasance, and Fronza Woods. Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les Presses Du Réel, 2010.
42 strong enough to cause people to say words they never had, laugh, wipe away tears, and sit in awe is definitely not a run-of-the-mill town hall. It is one example of how the art organization can provide a unique learning experience by giving over control of the outcome to the public.
This brings me to the next bullet point I’ll address: control of ownership over resources. For example, as stated earlier, guidelines for the town hall event were not mandatory, but rather hinted at. There are suggestions and an overall idea of what the event could be – not should. This means that partners and participants with The 50 Sate
Initiative had the ability to produce an event they deemed valuable in real relation to themselves as artists. Granted, one could argue that the majority of participants and collaborators of these events were already embedded within the subculture of the art world. That is true to a certain extent, but even the CCA event was in collaboration with a decidedly non-arts organization: The National Lawyers Guild (NLG).
Two lawyers from The NLG participated. Though the energy they brought and the approach they had was formal, it was informative and engaging. They even went so far as to carry out some skits in which members of the audience acted out situations in which they may be asked for personal identification or to answer personal questions, and were directed as to how best address each scenario. The actors didn’t play their parts faultlessly, but perfection is not the goal in participatory culture, but rather the ability to engage (Fig. 19). While setting up for this part of the evening, one of the lawyers asked if one audience member wanted to participate, to which they replied that they needed to depart, consequently the lawyer moved on to another member who could play a role. 43
Now, that may seem simple enough, but when looking at it as constituting a participatory activity, that ability to leave is a necessary part of consent.
Following that line of thought a little further, we can consider how For Freedoms enacts the platform’s ownership through the project. Yes, they provide a sort of pamphlet or guidelines for those wishing to take part in the event, but they do not explicitly state anywhere that once someone produces something it then belongs to For Freedoms, or may be used exclusively by them. Instead, they ask for partners to sign onto the initiative to receive access to their own national directory of over 175 artists and 100 institutions to help advance new partnerships and collaborations in the spirit of participating in democracy. “We believe in the collective power of artists. We are committed to the idea that democracy thrives on free dialogue.”57 Allowing partners to have ownership over their product might seem scary to an organization, but it prevents many useful, creative, entertaining and informative content creators from being lost to the world because of strict regulations without the opportunity for inventiveness.
Participation for All
The next point presented by Kelty is that of committing to support the individual and collective voices of an audience/the public, which is not commonly high on the scale of importance to an organization. Yet, it is an intrinsic part of The 50 State Initiative goals. Professional artists, professors, business professionals, students, and local citizens of the city of San Francisco were all represented at the CCA Town Hall. Some were given specific times to speak or perform, but there was also an allotted time for open
57 For Freedoms, 50 State Initiative Toolkit.
44 discussion as the mic was passed around to whomever wanted the floor. The discussion stayed under the umbrella topic of knowing one’s rights, but every person had a unique viewpoint. There was an undeniable respect conveyed to each person as they shared their art through speech, poetry, or performance, and there was also a sense that their being together respectfully physically, as a collective group of unique voices, was the real point. Multiple people spoke to this fact as they held the mic and spotlight.
This sort of involvement is valued in a participatory culture. As Jenkins states, “In a participatory culture, the entire community takes on some responsibility for helping newbies find their way.”58 Which brings me to the next bullet point of Kelty’s to address: proof that there is a set of shared standards to assess the quality of participation being produced. The issue today is that there are so many outlets for voices that none are being truly heard. There is also the phenomenon in which, behind the safety of the screen, people feel emboldened to be rude, intense, and inhumane. Jenkins insists that we are still at a point in time wherein the participatory nature of media is somewhat similar to the wild west of the past.59 In other words, it is new territory and nobody quite knows how to properly behave. Ethics need to be formed. There is a need for a platform where communication is supported and facilitated amongst this new interactive landscape in culture at large. For Freedoms is providing an example of how an organization may tackle such an ambitious goal with their creation of The 50 State Initiative. Through their project, they provided a set of standards of participation, while not enforcing them overly
58 Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 178. 59 ‘Masterclass with Henry Jenkins,’ Godrej India.
45 stringently. The project helps us to figure out a norm for future participatory collaborations such as this.
The last point that Kelty highlights is that of a shared affective experience. While the hosts and attendees of the aforementioned town hall in San Francisco surely each had an experience in real time; however, that is not the only way The 50 State Initiative was experienced. Content generated for the collaboration lives on in multiple platforms. For example, the entire event was recorded and uploaded to YouTube. The quality of the film is sometimes a little shaky and off center. Every once in a while, there is an intense swipe of the camera in one direction or another. Yet, that sort of imperfect quality is something the public seems to be craving at the moment. The curated, perfected production quality of traditional media is exactly why it is being called into question. For Freedoms’ rough, grassroots effect allows for the whole event to be uploaded and shared, flawless or not.
That fact alone means that anyone who is able to access the internet and search for the event can find it and potentially learn by watching without ever needing to be physically present.
Participation Beyond the Physical
Using the CCA town hall as example on just one social media format, Instagram, we can map out the way information travels within the participatory media landscape. By searching for “CCA” in the Instagram search bar, a list of user options appears. The top two choices, ‘ccaexhibitions’ (CCA Exhibitions) and ‘ccadedu’ (CCAD) both have content related to For Freedoms and The 50 State Initiative. The first post related to the collaboration is dated June 26, 2018 and is on the CCA Exhibitions page. It is an image of the brand emblem of The 50 State Initiative (Fig. 20). On a square white background, a 46 burgundy capital ‘F’ with elongated wavy crossbars (horizontal strokes) is positioned above a mirrored capital navy blue ‘F,’ their stems (vertical strokes) positioned in a way to form borders at either end, creating the shape of a waving flag. Directly to the right of this is the number fifty in a corresponding navy blue.
In all, the design has an acutely American vibe: red, white and blue combined with a flag and the number of states. A simple design but packed with much meaning, it is a fitting symbol for the country-wide collaboration. I find this an important element of the project because it is a simplistic enough branding agent that it can be added to any number of items and traverse media platforms easily and recognizably. The guidelines for the collaboration do not demand the emblem be used but do offer it as a branding tool and ask that it be used to further the project’s reach. Again, this sort of willingness to pass control from organization to partner/audience is in the spirit of a participatory culture, allowing for a shared experience, not just a curated one. It also provides a symbol by which artists associated with the project can be recognized.
If we are to stick to this one user – ccaexhibitions – and look at what is posted in relation to this event chronologically, we find the image of the initiative emblem with announcement complete with active links to @forfreedoms – the official Instagram account of the For Freedoms platform – and six different hashtags: #forfreedoms,
#cacollegeofarts, #takeaction, #50stateinitiative, and #weareforfreedoms. While the hashtag may seem a relatively simple, easy to overlook element found within social media platforms, the history behind it is relevant to the idea of a culture based around participation. The hashtag was not inherently a part of the social media platform, Twitter, 47 but it became one only after users adopted it and began using it for themselves as a way of categorizing and organizing information.60
In other words, it was the participants of the platform, not the platform itself, that ultimately influenced the way the symbol would be used. Therefore, even just in this small instance, there are at least six alternative searches one could do to find more information about For Freedoms and their project. The hashtags are made by the content uploader – not by the organization – and then other users of Instagram could take the image and provide their own hashtags and so forth. Moving forward in time, there are thirty-eight different posts on their page in relation to For Freedoms and/or The Fifty
State Initiative. They include photographs and videos of, and invitations to the For
Freedoms town hall and other related events such as “TAKE ACTION,” an exhibition highlighting work by over a dozen San Francisco Bay Area artists that prompted visitors to participate in civic discourse like making their own protest signs, “Freedom Is...,” a lawn sign workshop where people were invited to fill in their own answer to the prompt, and an Immigrant Speak Out where people met to share experiences, thoughts, and dreams for a better world. All of this activity contributes to a shared experience of the project and multiple options for participation.
The 50 State Initiative manages to account for all of the Jenkins-based bullet points set out by Kelty. Ultimately, For Freedoms has made space for artists and audience to express their voices without rigid regulation within American democracy.
60 ‘Masterclass with Henry Jenkins,’ Godrej India.
48
Decisions are made by the audience (which includes the artists themselves) as to what content is shared and how it is shared.
49
Conclusion: For Freedoms for Each Other
For Freedoms reworked the established roles of three different traditional mediums, by which people have interacted throughout much of U.S. history, to allow for artists to better engage in contemporary American civic life and the democratic process through the painting, the billboard, and the town hall. By doing so, Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman designed a structure that allowed for convergence, participation, and collective intelligence to flourish with artists leading the way. The collaborative photo project that helped to add a more diverse image to classic American iconography relied on the collective intelligence generated by multiple artists and many participants.
Convergence, which especially allowed for the artist’s creation to travel from one medium to another, arose through the movement and expansion of participating artist’s work through space, physical and virtual, but having to begin at the original artist’s billboard. Participation was facilitated through the town hall where artist-led discussion took center stage and choice was equal between facilitator and participant. The established mediums were the catalyst, but the new artistic creations are more important to our contemporary society because they have fostered collaboration. For Freedoms designed a system for artists to imagine and encourage creative civil action through artwork via traditional mediums, communicating more nuanced political ideas into public space, encouraging communication and collaboration not only amongst artists, but the
American public at large. 50
For Freedoms
Code of Ethics
We are inclusive.
We stand up for each other.
We talk to people’s faces, not behind their backs.
We are anti-violence. We are anti-partisan.
We trust each other to go places we don’t know.
We build.
We think critically.
We are for freedoms and for each other.
51
Figure 1 Emily Shur with Hank Willis Thomas, “Freedom of Worship,” 2018. (Photograph) Cover image for “TIME,” November 26, 2018. © Emily Shur Photography.
Figure 2 Norman Rockwell, “Freedom of Worship,” 1943. (Oil on canvas, 46" x 35 1/2") Story illustration for "The Saturday Evening Post," February 27, 1943. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. © SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN. 52
Figure 3 Norman Rockwell, “Freedom of Speech,” 1943. (Oil on canvas, 45 3/4″ x 35 1/2″) Story illustration for “The Saturday Evening Post,” February 20, 1943. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. ©SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.
Figure 4 Norman Rockwell, “Freedom from Want,” 1943. (Oil on canvas, 45 3/4″ x 35 1/2″) Story illustration for “The Saturday Evening Post,” March 6, 1943. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. ©SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN. 53
Figure 5 Norman Rockwell, “Freedom from Fear,” 1943. (Oil on canvas, 45 3/4″ x 35 1/2″) Story illustration for “The Saturday Evening Post,” March 13, 1943. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections. ©SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.
Figure 6 Dustin Aksland, "Portrait of Eric Gottesman and Hank Willis Thomas.” Date unknown. (Photograph) © Dustin Aksland Photography. 54
Figure 7 Sergio O'Cadiz Moctezuma, Detail of "Fountain Valley Mural," 1974-1976. (6' x 625') Destroyed 2001. Photographer unknown. © O'Cadiz Family Private Collection.
Figure 8 Emily Shur with Hank Willis Thomas, “Freedom of Speech,” 2018. (Photograph) Featuring comedian, actor, writer, and producer Cristela Alonzo (standing). © Emily Shur Photography. 55
Figure 9 Emily Shur with Hank Willis Thomas, “Freedom of Worship,” 2018. (Photograph) Featuring American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Attorney Amir Whitaker (center). © Emily Shur Photography.
Figure 10 For Freedoms, 50 State Initiative Interactive Activation Map, September 2018-present. (Screenshot of Map © 2019 Google, INEGI, ORION-ME) © 2018 For Freedoms Federation. 56
Figure 11 Barbara Kruger, "Untitled (Surveillance is Your Busy Work),” 1985. (Billboard) Photographer unknown. Photograph virtue of Billboard: Art on the Road by Laura Steward Heon, Peggy Diggs, and Joseph Thompson. © 1999 MASS MoCA.
Figure 12 GRAN FURY, "Welcome to America," 2018. This billboard for The 50 State Initiative was located in Norfolk, Virginia October 27, 2018 to December 21, 2018. Photographer unknown. Image © 2018 For Freedoms Federation.
57
Figure 13 Sable Elyse Smith, “Untitled (We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” 2018. This billboard for The 50 State Initiative was located in the historic neighborhood of Jackson Ward, Richmond, VA from November 12, 2018 through February 3, 2019. Photographer unknown. © Sable Elyse Smith.
Figure 14 Michael Bierut and Kai Salmela (Pentagram), “Untitled (This Bus is an Assault Vehicle in the Fight Against Global Warming),” July to September 2008. (Bus ad for Green Patriot Posters campaign via the Canary Project) Photograph virtue of Edward Morris. © 58
Figure 15 Sable Elyse Smith, “Untitled (We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” 2018. Gallery 1708 post via Instagram, January 15, 2018.
Figure 16 Sable Elyse Smith, “Untitled (We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” 2018. Gallery 1708 post via Instagram, January 18, 2018. 59
Figure 17 Sable Elyse Smith, “Untitled (We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace,” 2018. Gallery 1708 post via Instagram, January 19, 2018.
Figure 18 California College of the Arts, "Embrace Your Freedoms/Know Your Rights: A For Freedoms Town Hall," October 25, 2018. (Film) Video footage virtue of YouTube via CCA Exhibitions. Hank Willis Thomas (standing) leads the audience in an activity. 60
Figure 19 California College of the Arts, "Embrace Your Freedoms/Know Your Rights: A For Freedoms Town Hall," October 25, 2018. (Film) Video footage virtue of YouTube via CCA Exhibitions. Audience members take part in a role-playing activity led by The National Lawyers Guild.
Figure 20 For Freedoms, 50 State Initiative logo, 2016. © 2018 For Freedoms Federation.
61
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