By KELLY LOWENBERG
Staff Writer
The Globalize This! International Graphics
of Celebration and Dissent exhibition opened last week in
the Pomona College Museum of Art and was well attended by community
members, college students and sophisticated finger food. According
to the exhibition guide, prepared by Pamela Burga ’04, the
collection “represents a specific point of view critical
of corporate and economic globalization.” None of the posters
employed more than a few words but each poster’s message
was poignantly expressed and made more personal by its ambiguity.
The current exhibition is a compilation of several
different types of kitsch. As a collection the works communicate
a critical message, but the individual pieces have their own voices
of protest demanding a diverse array of social changes from women’s
rights to nuclear-testing bans. Carol Wells, executive director
of the Los Angeles-based Center for the Study of Political Graphics
writes in the wildly impressive, aforementioned exhibition guide
that the posters record “the culture of resistance”
and “the commitment to struggle to make the world a better
place.” It is not a podium for any particular movement,
although I believe all the individual platforms represented are
worthy of one.
“It was empowering to see what I feel concretely
expressed,” said Laura Bowles ’04 after visiting the
exhibit. “Through the art medium the artist was able to
say more visually than if he had written about it.” The
exhibit includes many international pieces, which still communicate
well despite the cultural disparities between country of origin
and country of display. For instance, one Brazilian work, Take
Care, reinterprets Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam from
the Sistine Chapel ceiling to promote safe sex, showing God handing
Adam a condom. In the world’s largest Catholic country,
one plagued by the AIDS pandemic, Brazilian priests are beginning
to break from the Church’s usual line of contraceptive condemnation.
The use of religious imagery to promote condom use puts the safety
advocates in the favor of unquestionable right, a privilege usually
reserved for the other side of the debate. Although the poster
was created for a Brazilian audience addressing issues particularly
relevant to Brazil, the message transcends the cultural context
and is intelligible and applicable to American culture as well.
While the message of Take Care does not seem immediately
pertinent to a discussion on globalization, in 2001 Brazil broke
international trade laws by allowing a generic version of an AIDS
drug-cocktail currently under U.S. patent protection to be produced
locally for lower prices. The U.S. filed a complaint with the
World Trade Organization, but then withdrew under pressure from
activists and world health officials. Under WTO regulations a
country in violation of intellectual property rights may be denied
entry to export markets. Take Care, whether intentionally or not,
also reflects the developed world’s god-like monopoly on
dispensing life-giving tools to the frail Adams of the developing
globe.
The sentiments of some posters are more overtly
anti-globalization, arguing against corporate exploitation of
Namibia’s natural resources or the IMF’s debilitating
effects on Latin American agricultural countries that cannot repay
debts within the allotted time. Other posters are less direct,
referring to the inundation of cartoon-like American ideals into
Soviet policy resulting in a closer partnership and the fall of
the Soviet Union. The common thread between the pieces in this
exhibit is that they all hint at an achievable, more ideal alternative.
This concept of art as a political tool is why this collection
affects me so powerfully. That art can move people emotionally
is a given. That art can move a whole people to action is what
makes political art one of the most powerful shapers of human
history.
Behind every political movement is the same desire to create a
more perfect world—a safer, freer, more humane world, a
closer approximation of Eden. Every new political model -- democracy,
communism, fascism, rock ‘n’roll -- is meant to bring
people away from the oppressive past and into a better tomorrow.
Public outreach organizations like the ACLU that
pass out fliers with words and statistics do their best. They
try hard to educate the public about the injustices that surround
us, but the flow of information is limited to the few literate
intellectuals who have enough time on their hands to be stylishly
outraged.
To get the masses involved and institute widespread
change, you can’t propose alternative political structures,
not on leaflets. If a political movement’s main means of
recruitment is words on fliers, change will be slow going. Words
target the mind; Mother shakes her head slowly in the kitchen
where she is stirring up society, then she softly sends you out
on the pavement to think about the government.
She knows the impetus for change cannot be simply
intellectual. All proposed alternatives will also have flaws that
cause hesitation for questions, and every second of delay makes
inaction more likely.
You’ve got to aim for the raw feeling, to communicate with
people emotionally without being too specific. You’ve got
to speak in images. Okay okay, you get it; our hearts are slaves
to the eye.
These gut reactions have the potential to coalesce individuals
into waves of shaking fists. Like religions, political movements
remind their constituents of a shared bond.
As one of the posters, In Solidarity with the
World’s Poor, created by the Graphiconies, states: “Solidarity
is another name for the kind of love that moves feet, hands, hearts,
material goods, assistance, and sacrifice towards the pain, danger,
misfortune, disaster, repression, or death of another persons
or whole people. The aim is to share with them and help them rise
up, become free, claim justice, rebuild.”
Righteousness in numbers. Hold hands when you
cross over to the other side, kids. That is the strength of political
art, to mobilize large groups of people who feel capable of creating
needed change and are bolstered by the feeling of brotherhood.
I’m not arguing with the accuracy of the quoted sentiment;
it just seems that problems arise when allegiance is pledged to
the flag instead of principles, so to speak.
Don’t jump off a bridge just cause everyone
else is doing it, even if they’ve got vision. You should
really look first.
Nevertheless, the exhibit is a tribute to the
effort to rebuild movements, to further the dream without becoming
tied to dogma, to the continual renewal of the human struggle
and hope. So, if you think hope is good, you should go visit the
Montgomery Art Museum. If you want to change the world, create
art.
