From the issue dated
September 20, 2002
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END PAPER
Insurgent Images
Mural
in the Frederick Douglass Library,
University of Maryland-Eastern Shore
Mural painting is one of the best jobs
available under capitalism. You look at
the world from the top of a scaffold.
You paint, listen to music, enjoy the
sunshine, discuss art, get into political
arguments, join picket lines, go on
demonstrations, and make fun of the ruling
class. Everyone compliments you on your
work as if you did it all by yourself.
Actually, mural painting is a process that
involves lots of people. ...
It is the beginning of a new century.
Artists and workers have much to do. There
are new political battles to wage. There
are walls to paint and bosses and
bureaucrats to torment!
-- Mike Alewitz
The reappearance of the mural marks the
return of painting from the museum to its
public role in the human community. The
work of Mike Alewitz and the collective
character of his projects draw upon
centuries or eons of collaborative
activity, from cave paintings to
Michelangelo, the Dada and Surrealist
movements to political graffiti. Alewitz's
approach is ideally suited to the
postmodern and post-state socialist era,
when everything rebellious must be created
anew and when "culture" along
with "labor" are urgently needed
to salvage a world from eco-disaster,
perpetual war, and the plundering of human
possibility. The art of Alewitz and Co.
(with the Co. constantly changing) has
already been part of labor's recovery from
decades of poor leadership, part of the
struggle for democratic unions in a
changing global marketplace and with a
rapidly changing work force.
"The
Worker in the New World Order:
Production," 1995
The image and text are
from the book Insurgent Images: The
Agit-prop Murals of Mike Alewitz, by
Mike Alewitz and Paul Buhle. Mr. Alewitz
teaches mural painting at Central
Connecticut State University and is
artistic director of the Labor Art and
Mural Project. Mr. Buhle teaches American
civilization at Brown University. The book
has just been published by the Monthly
Press Review.
http://chronicle.com
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 49, Issue 4, Page B15
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