Posts Tagged ‘Agitation’
Global Agitprop Initiative
LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
AGITPROP NEWS: 1.24.9
In this issue:
1. Join the Global AgitProp Initiative
2. Global AgitProp Manifesto
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1. Global AgitProp Initiative
Dear friends,
For almost 20 years, the Labor Art & Mural Project (LAMP) has travelled the globe to organize cultural projects in support of working-class strikes and struggles for social and economic justice.
Thousands of artists and activists have been involved in sponsoring, creating, organizing, propagandizing, documenting, fundraising, promoting and otherwise helping to make these initiatives come alive. With few resources, we were able to build projects from the ground up that intervened into critical debates within the labor movement. We played a unique role in consciously advancing a working-class perspective about the Los Angeles rebellion, the need to form a Labor Party, the fight for a democratic secular Palestine and similar campaigns and ideas. Above all, we have championed the ideas of independent political action and international solidarity.
LAMP has a proud record of accomplishment. As a result of our professionalism and hard work, we can look back and proudly note that all of these projects have stood the test of time – LAMP has served as a model of principled politics for artists and activists attempting to revive the agitprop (agitation-propaganda) traditions of our movement.
The Past
We have always drawn on the rich history of the working-class movement, including the early years of the Russian Revolution, the Mexican mural movement, the Cuban revolution and the cultural life of the Wobblies. We endeavored to reestablish the bonds between workers and artists that were broken during the anti-communist witch-hunt of the 1950s, when many of our class-struggle traditions were lost.
We have made our own contribution to this body of knowledge with our experiences painting murals in revolutionary Nicaragua, participating in immigrant worker struggles and many other ways. We have supported the initiatives of other groups attempting to organize artists and cultural events. Because of all this, we have gained a great amount of experience and knowledge about using agitprop art in the class struggle.
The Present
Today, as we stand on the verge of a world depression, new realities and opportunities face us. We are witnessing the collapse of the world economic order - with all the death and destruction that result from the desperate attempts of a dying ruling class to survive.
In response to the crisis of capitalism, workers have embraced the Internet and begun to conduct an unprecedented discussion that will lay the basis for future political action. We are creating a powerful new tool that allows us to surpass old methods of organizing and spreading revolutionary ideas.
It is now possible to reach out to thousands, even millions of people throughout the world as events unfold in real time. This has been illustrated by recent events like the uprising in Greece, the plant take over by UE workers in Chicago and the student occupation of the New School in New York. We believe that these, and other changing circumstances necessitate a change from how we have organized activities in recent years, in order to keep pace with new realities.
The Future
Our small initiative, by itself, would never be able to influence or decide the outcome of the class struggle. Instead of trying to create quantity, we focused on the propaganda side of agitprop, attempting to promote our ideas and vision. That remains our goal today.
For this reason, we are proposing to establish a new format to promote the ideas and actions that we have been engaged in over the last two decades. Global AgitProp (GAP) will be a broad formation where revolutionary-minded agitprop artists can come together, learn, share, debate and develop approaches to aid in the working-class struggle for power.
We will be able to post photos of agitprop art from around the world, upload documents, network to organize local or international projects, etc. The possibilities are enormous.
We do not envision GAP as an all-encompassing organization for progressive artists – rather, it is geared specifically for those who agree with the revolutionary perspective contained in the Global AgitProp Manifesto. That manifesto embodies the experiences of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the long history of past initiatives by revolutionary artists and organizations.
This is not a value judgment on other approaches to art and we are not counter-posing ourselves to other formations. Members of Global AgitProp will make art in other venues, participate in broad coalitions, etc.
Global AgitProp is for those who make or support art as a weapon for agitation and propaganda - for intervening into and influencing unfolding working-class struggles. GAP will be an open forum and collaboration. There will be little in the way of formal structure, but we will attempt unified support to international developments were possible. Our goal is to popularize and promote agitprop art.
We stand at a critical moment in history. We cannot simply paint over the decay of capitalism. We can and will use our brushes as weapons in the conquest for power - to replace the bloody system of private profit with a new world based on human needs and respect for nature.
Join us!
Mike Alewitz/ Artistic Director, Labor Art & Mural Project
Tony Savino/ Photographer, NY
Christopher Hutchinson/ General Strike Comics
Sherri Page/ Painter, London, UK
Susan Greene/ Break the Silence Mural and Arts Project
Mia Kuwada/ Los Angeles
Karen Fiorito/ Artist/ Printmaker/ Troublemaker, Los Angeles, CA
Keith Christensen/ Artist, Minneapolis
Tim Drescher/ Independent Scholar
Marela Zacarias/ Muralist
Marissa Blaszko/ Connecticut
Black River Bandit/ Redgrass Musician/ Writer/ Illustrator
Roxanne Amico/ aka Spiritmorph Studio & Radio Roxanne
Join GAP at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=74517560608
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2. Global AgitProp Manifesto
GLOBAL AGITPROP/ MANIFESTO
GLOBAL AGITPROP supports all legitimate struggles of working people.
GLOBAL AGITPROP recognizes that the class struggle is international – between workers there must be no borders.
GLOBAL AGITPROP rejects national chauvinism, racism, sexism, homophobia and any other ideology used to divide and conquer the working class.
GLOBAL AGITPROP rejects any patronizing or romantic notions about working people.
GLOBAL AGITPROP supports the struggle of women for full equality.
GLOBAL AGITPROP supports the struggles of oppressed nations and minorities for political and cultural self-determination.
GLOBAL AGITPROP opposes terrorism, acts of moral witness and other futile forms of individual resistance.
GLOBAL AGITPROP rejects phony left workers fronts, lesser-evil politics and other unprincipled combinations.
GLOBAL AGITPROP supports independent working class parties and mass action.
GLOBAL AGITPROP is opposed to bourgeois censorship.
GLOBAL AGITPROP is opposed to censorship by workers’ organizations.
GLOBAL AGITPROP welcomes controversy and debate.
GLOBAL AGITPROP is open to artists and workers using any mediums or styles.
GLOBAL AGITPROP favors the objective over the subjective, the monumental over the private.
GLOBAL AGITPROP places content before form.
GLOBAL AGITPROP is not for those who enrich themselves by exploiting workers as subject matter.
GLOBAL AGITPROP is not for artists who flap their jaws about political art but never walk a picket line.
GLOBAL AGITPROP is not for artists whose paint adorns the homes of the wealthy, but not the banners of workers.
GLOBAL AGITPROP rejects the gallery system that exploits and dehumanizes artists.
GLOBAL AGITPROP demands that intellectual and artistic labor be respected and compensated by employers.
GLOBAL AGITPROP demands that workers organizations provide fair treatment and union wages for artists.
GLOBAL AGITPROP recognizes the ability of working people to embrace the most challenging forms of art.
GLOBAL AGITPROP rejects false distinctions between professional, primitive, commercial, fine or other arbitrary categories of art.
GLOBAL AGITPROP strives for the highest quality of craft, knowledge of theory and command of history.
GLOBAL AGITPROP is for those who want to use their art as a weapon.
GLOBAL AGITPROP is for those who want to study Agitprop art.
GLOBAL AGITPROP understands that the struggles of artists and other workers are inseparable.
GLOBAL AGITPROP recognizes that the overthrow of capitalism is essential for the survival of our planet.
GLOBAL AGITPROP fights to create a world based on human needs and respect for nature.
GLOBAL AGITPROP proclaims that revolution is the greatest creative act of humanity.
Artists and Workers of the World…Unite!
Join GAP at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=74517560608