The War Of Art is the recently published book by Poster Boy. Watch the following video, and then read our exclusive interview with him.
WTPF: how would you describe the relationship between vanguard art and danger, and for you, which element is more important: the aesthetic plastic result of the piece, or the power of provocation of the piece? both of these elements are strongly present in your work, and i wonder if you plan the execution of a piece before you render it. also, please explain the importance of improvisation in your work.
PB: Danger is part of the medium. Without the element of danger the current vanguard would lose an edge that wasn’t really present in preceding movements. As far as aesthetics and provocation goes, both are necessary in art. Well, good art least.
For better or worse, I don’t plan much. For me, improvisation is protest against the urge to preserve, polish, and market everything. Something I learned from the Jazz and Hip Hop.
WTPF – can art change the world or does art only change art? does it even matter? feel free to elaborate.
PB – Art does change the world, but only for those who have the imagination to realize it.
WTPF – what do you think about this statement: “The ultimate protest is against the silence of God”?
PB – I feel every act is a reaction to God’s silence. Whether its protest depends on the person’s understanding of God/consciousness.
WTPF – what inspires me the most about your art, and the movement in which you are one of its leaders, is that a dialectical relationship exists between the work and the audience. in your case, other Poster Boys and Girls have adopted your methods, and have become protagonists. were you surprised that this occurred?
PB – I wasn’t surprised at all. I actually anticipated this by establishing Poster Boy as a platform for anyone willing to participate. People want to feel alive, but apathy is a serious hurdle for some. Which is probably why the act of illegal poster alteration, however trivial, has been so inspirational and empowering.
WTPF – Your soon to be released book “The War Of Art”, is in my opinion a poem of transformations of transgressions. the transgressions being the vapid and polluting influence of the commercial propaganda that you transform into art and revolutionary statement. Salvador Dali once described himself as a pig that consumes all of the slop of modernity, and shits out gold. Dali of course kept all the gold for himself: why do you do it? please explain what motivates you the most to do what you do.
PB – The book is a poem. A work of art in itself rather than a collection.
I used to resent the fact that I had no positive role models growing up. So now I aspire to be the role model I wish I had. Truth is what motivates me.
WTPF – thank you.
A Poster Boy will be hosting the party celebrating the release of “The War Of Art” at 17 Frost Theater Of The Arts in Williamsburg Brooklyn on August 28th. Come for the book, beer and music.
Very moving it is to be in an audience, where it is the custom to sing with the master.
Silvio Rodriguez Is the Walt Whitman of the Cuban revolution. His songs are deeply rooted in the humanism which was described by Che Guevara in El Socialismo Y El Hombre En Cuba
Our utopia is still very far away, but its music has always been with us.
It is better to be Brechtian than Manichean.
In this short video, i page through a book of Rene’s iconic Vietnam silkscreens. He created these images in 1972 during his second visit to North Vietnam, and everything depicted was witnessed by him.
These images were first published as silkscreens in a large format, and later a few hundred copies of this book were produced: each image had to be redone in miniature form in a process that Rene described to me as something only possible – “because we were crazy!”
My copy was given to me by Rene, and he added a dedication, which i read whenever i want to feel his presence.
Painting By Javier Hernandez-Miyares Based On A Drawing By Diego Rivera
We can say without exaggeration that never has civilization been menaced so seriously as today. The Vandals, with instruments which were barbarous and comparatively ineffective, blotted out the culture of antiquity in one corner of our planet. But today we see world civilization, united in its historic destiny, reeling under the blows of reactionary forces armed with the entire arsenal of modern technology. We are by no means thinking only of another world war that draws near. Even in times of ‘peace’ the position of art and science has become absolutely intolerable.
In so far as it originates with an individual, in so far as it brings into play subjective talents to create something which brings about an objective enriching of culture, any philosophical, sociological, scientific or artistic discovery seems to be the fruit of a precious chance; that is to say, the manifestation, more or less spontaneous, of necessity. Such creations cannot be slighted, whether from the standpoint of general knowledge (which interprets the existing world) or of revolutionary knowledge (which, the better to change the world, requires an exact analysis of the laws which govern its movement). Specifically, we cannot remain indifferent to the intellectual conditions under which creative activity takes place; nor should we fail to pay all respect to those particular laws which govern intellectual creation.
In the contemporary world we must recognize the ever more widespread destruction of those conditions under which intellectual creation is possible. From this follows of necessity an increasingly manifest degradation not only of the work of art but also of the specifically ‘artistic’ personality. The regime of Bush/Obama, and American idol, has reduced those who still consent to take up pen,brush, or mouse to the status of domestic servants of the regime, whose task it is to glorify it on order, according to the worst possible aesthetic conventions.
It goes without saying that we do not identify ourselves with the currently fashionable catchword, ‘Neither fascism nor communism!’ –a shibboleth which suits the temperament of the philistine, conservative and frightened, clinging to the tattered remnants of the ‘democratic’ past. True art, which is not content to play variations on ready-made models but rather insists on expressing the inner needs of man and of mankind in its time –true art is unable not to be revolutionary, not to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society. This it must do, were it only to deliver intellectual creation from the chains which bind it, and to allow all mankind to raise itself to those heights which only isolated geniuses have achieved in the past. We recognize that only the social revolution can sweep clean the path for a new culture.
The communist revolution is not afraid of art. It realizes that the role of the artist in a decadent capitalist society is determined by the conflict between the individual and various social forms which are hostile to him. This fact alone, in so far as he is conscious of it, makes the artist the natural ally of revolution. The process of sublimation, which here comes into play and which psychoanalysis has analyzed, tries to restore the broken equilibrium between the integral ‘ego’ and the outside elements it rejects. This restoration works to the advantage of the ‘ideal of self’, which marshals against the unbearable present reality all those powers of the interior world, of the ‘id’, which are common to all men and which are constantly flowering and developing. The need for emancipation felt by the individual spirit has only to follow its natural course to be led to mingle its stream with this primeval necessity –the need for the emancipation of man.
The conception of the writer’s function which the young Marx worked out is worth recalling. ‘The writer’, he said, ‘naturally must make money in order to live and write, but he should not under any circumstances live and write in order to make money…The writer by no means looks on his work as a means. It is an end in itself and so little a means in the eyes of himself and of others that if necessary he sacrifices his existence to the existence of his work…The first condition of freedom of the press is that it is not a business activity.’
It is more than ever fitting to use this statement against those who would regiment intellectual activity in the direction of ends foreign to itself and prescribe, in the guise of so-called reasons of state, the themes of art. The free choice of these themes and the absence of all restrictions on the range of his exploitations –these are possessions which the artist has a right to claim as inalienable. In the realm of artistic creation, the imagination must escape from all constraint and must under no pretext allow itself to be placed under bonds. To those who urge us, whether for today or for tomorrow, to consent that art should submit to a discipline which we hold to be radically incompatible with its nature, we give a flat refusal and we repeat our deliberate intention of standing by the formula complete freedom for art.
We recognize, of course, that the revolutionary state has the right to defend itself against the counterattack of the bourgeoisie, even when this drapes itself in the flag of science or art. But there is an abyss between these enforced and temporary measures of revolutionary self-defense and the pretension to lay commands on intellectual creation. If, for the better development of the forces of material production, the revolution must build a socialist regime with centralized control, to develop intellectual creation an anarchist regime of individual liberty should from the first be established. No authority, no dictation, not the least trace of orders from above! Only on a base of friendly cooperation, without constraint from outside, will it be possible for scholars and artists to carry out their tasks, which will be more far-reaching than ever before in history.
It should be clear by now that in defending freedom of thought we have no intention of justifying political indifference, and that it is far from our wish to revive a so-called pure art which generally serves the extremely impure ends of reaction. No, our conception of the role of art is too high to refuse it an influence on the fate of society. We believe that the supreme task of art in our epoch is to take part actively and consciously in the preparation of the revolution. But the artist cannot serve the struggle for freedom unless he subjectively assimilates its social content, unless he feels in his very nerves its meaning and drama and freely seeks to give his own inner world incarnation in his art.
In the present period of the death agony of capitalism, democratic as well as fascist, the artist sees himself threatened with the loss of his right to live and continue working. He sees all avenues of communication choked with the debris of capitalist collapse. It is only natural that he should turn to blogging, which holds out the possibility of escaping from his isolation. But if he is to avoid complete demoralisation he cannot remain there, because of the impossibility of delivering his own message and the degrading servility which these organisations exact from him in exchange for certain material advantages. He must understand that his place is elsewhere, not among those who betray the cause of the revolution, and of mankind, but among those who with unshaken fidelity bear witness to the revolution; among those who, for this reason, are alone able to bring it to fruition, and along with it the ultimate free expression of all forms of human genius .
The aim of this appeal is to find a common ground on which all revolutionary writers and artists may be reunited, the better to serve the revolution by their art and to defend the liberty of that art itself against the usurpers of the revolution. We believe that aesthetic, philosophical and political tendencies of the most varied sort can find here a common ground. Marxists can march here together with anarchists.
We know very well that thousands on thousands of isolated thinkers and artists are today scattered throughout the world, their voices drowned out by the loud choruses of well-disciplined liars. Hundreds of small blog sites are trying to gather youthful forces about them, seeking new paths and not subsidies. Every progressive tendency in art is marginilized by fascism as ‘degenerate’. Every free creation is called ‘fascist’ by the Stalinists. Independent revolutionary art must now gather its forces for the struggle against reactionary persecution. It must proclaim aloud the right to exist. Such a union of forces is the aim of the International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art which we believe it is now necessary to form.
We by no means insist on every idea put forth in this manifesto, which we ourselves consider only a first step in the direction. We urge every friend and defender of art, who cannot but realize the necessity for this appeal, to make himself heard at once. We address the same appeal to all those publications of the left which are ready to participate in the creation of the International Federation and to consider its task and its methods of action.
When a preliminary international contact has been established through the press and by correspondence, we will proceed to the organization of local and national congresses on a modest scale. The final step will be the assembly of a world congress which will officially mark the foundation of the International Federation.
Our aims:
The independence of art — for the revolution.
The revolution — for the complete liberation of art!
Art from all – to liberate us from our dialectical dilemma.
Andre Breton
Diego Rivera
Javier Hernandez-Miyares
While your mother wears the jackboot,
You have no time to lose.
Slip away in your rat drawn shoes
To live to fight another day.
With the students in the streets,
you’ll rain petrol on their heads.
The iron fist wants to bust your balls,
and make your brother eat some lead.
Your lips are dry and your eyes are burning
as the crowd starts to disperse.
It was the summer of your first love,
until the curfew fell.
Backstabbing bastards were wearing the necklace,
and burning in the fields.
Riot police smoking lucky strikes,
as they flirted with the girls.
While the president of some foreign country
told you everything was well.
I bet you felt very macho
all the time you were raising hell!
Jackboot summer you will never forget.
The sound of rubber bullets
as they pass by your head.
It was a jackboot summer.
You spent time in a closet
discovering what you need.
Then like the bulls of Pamplona,
you chased it in the streets.
Electronic eyes of nations
were present at the scene.
Recording every moment
for the folks that watch tee vee.
You never thought for a moment that
you were winning anything.
Jackboot summer you will never forget.
The sound of rubber bullets
as they pass by your head.
It was a jackboot summer.
lyrics and music by Javier Hernandez-Miyares
I wrote this song in praise of the first intifada, and it is deliberately ironic, because we were watching it on our distorted tee vees.
The style of the tune is tropical blues. Jackboot Summer
We encourage you to defend Iraq war veteran Marc Hall, who is currently imprisoned for recording a song that expresses his anger over the Army’s stop-loss policy. Stop-loss is a policy that allows the army to keep soldiers active beyond the end of their signed contracts.
Dahr Jamail from truthout.org reports on the circumstances of Hall’s imprisonment here.
The following is an interview that i conducted eleven years ago of a veteran of the Panama invasion. This testimonial by a soldier who was an eyewitness, is a riveting chronicle of the evils of war, and a condemnation of yanqui imperialism. This interview has never been published before.
This jewel from my archive of demos needs some polish. i have written many more songs than i have used, and this is one that was languishing, so i put it up here now for fresh air. The lyrics are based on a poem by Mario Benedetti. I recorded this live and added some harmonies. This is a sketch of a song about our struggle for humanity. The jagged rhythms come from Bartok and The Clash.
Biografía visual de Ho Chi Minh que refleja la lucha del heroico pueblo vietnamita, del director cubano Santiago Álvarez.
Observations by WTPF:
Director Santiago Alvarez developed his “nervous montage” technique of using “found materials,” such as Hollywood movie clips, cartoons, and photographs, and his style is considered a precursor to the modern video clip.
“Inna Gadda Da Vida”, by Iron Butterfly is mashed up into the soundtrack of this film. This is an early example of sampling, the use of previously recorded music, to create a new hybrid composition.
Footage from this film, and others that Santiago Alvarez shot or acquired in Vietnam, have rarely been broadcast in the U.S. mainstream media.
