Chuck Sperry Interview for “Occupy Bay Area” at YBCA
SF Bay Guardian raw interview with Chuck Sperry re: “Occupy Bay Area” exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
July 2, 2012
Chuck Sperry, 2011 (Photo credit: Nick Cernak)
Caitlin Donohue, SFBG: At what moment did you realize that Occupy was an important event? How did you first hear about it?
Chuck Sperry: Through the beginning of 2011, I was creating an installation for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curated by Renee de Cossio, with artists Chris Shaw and Ron Donovan. Each artist would install work in one of three Artists’ Gallery Windows on the side of the SFMOMA on Minna Street. The proposal for the installation was to bring the aesthetic of San Francisco’s poster traditions to painting, and to realize these in monumental form. I wanted this piece to reflect San Francisco’s poster history beginning in the Freedom of Speech movement through the 1960’s, and to also reflect the Psychedelic tradition that gave birth to the Rock Poster.
While I was working on an 11 foot by 9 foot acrylic painting – through the beginning of 2011- I was following the progress of the Arab Spring movements, Tahrir Square. I decided to use my reaction to these events as inspiration for an iconographic painting titled, “Saint Everyone.” I wanted to express the opening mind, and spreading enlightened humanism, the decentralization of power – or awakening sense of people power – to this piece. I used vibrating, reactive colors to paint a figure holding an opening lotus (symbol of enlightenment), against a background of Op Art circles, which communicate decentralization – that the background has many centers – like the movement which has no leaders.
“Saint Everyone” was installed at the SFMOMA in June 2011. So I was getting with it by then.
Saint Everyone, 2011
Chuck Sperry
Chuck Sperry
As Occupy Oakland was forming by the Fall of 2011, my artist friend Jon-Paul Bail of Political Gridlock was printing his iconographic “Hella Occupy Oakland” posters on Frank Ogawa Plaza – re-named Oscar Grant Plaza – from the point when people were first gathering there. When I say printing, Jon-Paul Bail was printing live, right there, with a table set up in the open, printing and handing people freshly made posters. In a few short weeks he had printed hundreds, if not, thousands of posters which were being handed out to people there. He was joined there on Oscar Grant Plaza by Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza of Dignidad Rebelde, who created more iconographic posters for the Occupy movement.
CD: What led to your decision to make art inspired by Occupy? Was it a different process than your other creative projects?
CS: In September I was in an art show, LA VS. WAR, with Bail, Barraza, and Cervantes, (among others) and we discussed making posters for the November 2 Occupy action to close the Port of Oakland. Fellow artist Chris Shaw – who was involved in the SFMOMA Window Gallery Installation – offered to pay for the production of any Occupy posters through the printing account of rock band Moonalice who was in solidarity with Occupy.
This Is Our City And We Can Shut It Down, 2011
Chuck Sperry
I created “This Is Our City, And We Can Shut It Down.” I usually work with images and take a lot of time to work my art into a design. In this case, the message was so over-riding and important, that I felt it was my job as an artist to stay out of the way, and let the words and message do their job. So in this way it was different. I used color theories learned in studying the long San Francisco tradition of Psychedelic poster art, the use of hot colors against cold colors to make the words read from a half mile away – haha! I wanted a strong, radical message, used with bold nurturing colors that convey a positive emotion. It would not be a typical political poster.
CD: How do you want your Occupy poster to be used/beheld?
CS: Chris Shaw and I discussed printing our posters on heavy paper stock, and printing on both sides to double the exposure we could give people to our message. You could use this poster as a placard, hold it up over your head. It would make quite an impression and be useful to the action. I stood at Oscar Grant Plaza next to the street and passed out nearly 1000 posters in 45 minutes to the front of the march, so when television cameras picked up the action at the Port of Oakland, the front of the march was a sea of my poster with the message, “This Is Our City, And We Can Shut It Down.” No one directed us to make these posters. No one asked. We just did it. And passed them out.
CD: What is some of your favorite protest art from history (can be your work or someone else’s)
CS: I am very inspired by Emory Douglas’ art in the Black Panther Party newspaper. I’ve had the honor to work with Mr. Douglas to reprint some of his iconic images. I also am very fond of the French Situationist posters of May 1968, and had the good fortune to print a poster, while I was visiting Paris to make a poster show about 5 years ago, on the very same press that produced these memorable images. When my artist friend told me that Guy Debord had worked with artists on this very same press, I laughed and dropped to my knees and just could not believe it.
I invited Jon-Paul Bail to collaborate in teaching a class at The Free University of San Francisco, as I’m organizing the Art Department of that cooperatively organized free school. We told the story of making posters for the Occupy movement and created a poster for the Occupy Education action last Spring. I think the ideas coming together from the Occupy protests will move through society in a very healthy and transformative way. There’s no way to stop people once they have been awakened to their potential.
CD: What is the role of art in social protest?
CS: Art can reach many people in many walks of life. I was invited by San Francisco’s Varnish Fine Art Gallery to exhibit at SCOPE / Miami in conjunction with Art Basel Miami art fair. Even in the context of the fine art world I felt it was important to express the social revolution that was taking place through the Occupy movement, and created a piece titled, “Mind Spring,” which expressed some of the same ideas I put in my SFMOMA painting and my Occupy poster. In Mind Spring, I created an icon of the Worldwide Occupy Movement and it’s antecedent in the Arab Spring. The figure wreathed in blooming spring flowers is a representation of the surprising enlightened humanism, the opening mind, the broadened socio-political possibilities which has swept the world in 2011.
Mind Spring, 2011
Chuck Sperry
Chuck Sperry
I’ve been contributing to a political magazine called World War 3 Illustrated, a New York publication, which is cooperatively edited by Seth Tobocman and Peter Kuper, and a number of legendary artists over the years. WW3 is America’s longest running political comic book; it’s been published for over 25 years. I’ve had many discussions about the role of political art over the years. Two solutions to this problem constantly come to mind, first, Content Over Style, that Content is more important than Style. Your message is the most important element in creating art of social protest. Second, that the Personal Is Political, your own experience is so very often shared by others all over the world. When you make a piece of art in social protest, and just tell your story from your own perspective, and you do not hold back, you will be describing a situation that is shared by others half a world away. It’s uncanny, but our local problems are very similar to everyone else’s globally. So get in there and try to change what you can from where you are. Many hands make light work.
Patti Smith at the Paradiso Amsterdam
Patti Smith at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, July 7, 2012
Ideal Poster Series No. 77
20.5 x 29.5
5 colors on archival cream paper
Edition of 125
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT – Thank You!
_______________
Patti Smith at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, July 7, 2012
Ideal Poster Series No. 77
20.5 x 29.5
5 colors on natural textured paper
Natural Textured Edition of 25
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT – Thank You!
________________
Patti Smith at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, July 7, 2012
Ideal Poster Series No. 77
20.5 x 29.5
5 colors on silver metallic paper
Silver Metallic Edition of 13
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT – Thank You!
________________
I’ll be making a very limited release of this poster and two variant editions on Sunday, July 8, 2012, at 10 am PST.
When JC Hall asked me to do a poster for Patti Smith, I jumped at the commission. I made this portrait of her, using a gold metallic base of patternization and layered colors over. The gold peeks through the final deep brown line art, and blues and reds were tinted with a semi-transluscent yellow.
Chuck Sperry at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, July 7 – October 14
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Presents:
Occupy Bay Area
July 7-October 14, 2012
Gallery 3
$10 Regular/ $8 students, senior, discount
FREE for YBCA Members & YBCA:You
FREE first Tuesday of each month • noon – 8 pm
Since its inception in September 2011, the Occupy Movement has generated both praise and condemnation. A direct response to the financial instability, subprime mortgage crisis and the decline of trust in the government’s ability to effectively address the problems in the labor market, it continues to resonate in the American consciousness. In response to the significant output of art and documentation produced in support of the Occupy Movement in Oakland and San Francisco, YBCA has put together an exhibition of works that have proven to be particularly effective in supporting the goals and aspirations of the Movement. Impressively, various political poster artists devoted their talents to messaging the politics and culture of the movement by creating iconic images — designs that were a call to action, or posters announcing an upcoming event. In many ways these works, by twenty-five Bay Area artists, carry forward the region’s long tradition as a leader in political struggles, from the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s, to struggles by communities of color in the 1970s, to AIDS activism in the 1980s. The exhibition also includes a selection of photojournalistic and documentary photography and video that serve as a record of the events around the Occupy Movement.
Additionally, to connect to earlier movements and provide a historical context for the project, the exhibition includes posters and photographs from other political struggles, including the Black Panther Party, I-Hotel in Manilatown (1968–77); the ARC/AIDS Vigil at City Hall (1985–95); the Occupation of Alcatraz (1969–71); the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley (1964–65); and the San Francisco State University protests, to gain an Ethnic Studies program and Black Student Union demands (1968–69).While these earlier movements certainly differ in ways from Occupy, they all are the result of a deep desire for marginalized peoples to be represented and treated fairly.
This exhibition is not meant to represent a fully executed social history, but is a testament of the power of images to evoke the emotional expression of popular and wide-spread sentiments. By localizing our efforts, we also pay special tribute to the role that Bay Area artists have played in giving voice to the 99% and utilizing art as an effective vehicle for social change.
Poster artists:
Rich Black
Zerena Diaz
Cannon Dill
Dignidad Rebelde (Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza)
Eric Drooker
Alexandra Fisher
Dave Garcia
Ronnie Goodman
Jason Justice
Gabby Miller and Miriam Klein Stahl
Nuclear Winter Art
Occupy Design
Political Gridlock (Jon-Paul Bail)
Cristy C. Road
Faviana Rodriguez
Chris Shaw
Colin Smith
Winston Smith
Chuck Sperry
Xavier Viramontes
Gregoirire Vion
Fred Zaw
Anonymous artists
Aligned artists:
Sergio de la Torre
Kota Ezawa
Eric Drooker
Megan Wilson
Suzanne Lacy
Sanaz Mazinani
Artists of historical posters & photographs:
Robert Bechtle
Emory Douglas
Rupert Garcia
Ilka Hartmann
Steven Marcus
“Indian Joe” Morris
Rachael Romero
Sheila Tully
Anonymous artists
Photojournalism and video artists:
Li Chen
Ewen Wright
Mogwai at The Regency / Psyck Italia Tour / Uncut Release
With the release of my Genova Workshop poster, I am also releasing these variations on the same theme. I felt it would be cool for you to have all the choices put in front of you, before you made a choice which prints might appeal to you. The documentation and special circumstances surrounding the Genova Workshop makes that one a very special variant of the following designs. But you decide.
Also, excuse me for being a few days later than announced releasing these, I’ve had jet-lag a little worse than expected (I’m posting this at 4:30 am haha)
Mogwai at The Regency, June 1, 2012
Firehouse Goldenvoice Poster Series No. 157
9 x 31
3 colors on acid-free, textured paper
Edition of 100 (Cut Numbers 26 through 125)
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT. Thank You!
________________
Psyck Italia Tour Poster
9 x 31
3 colors on acid-free, textured paper
Edition of 100 (Cut Numbers 26 through 125)
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT. Thank You!
________________
Uncut Mogwai / Psyck Italia Tour Poster
18 x 31
3 colors on acid-free, textured paper
Edition of 25 (Uncut Numbers 1 through 25)
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT. Thank You!
________________
I’ll be making a very limited release of these three editions on Saturday, June 23, 2012 at a random time.
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