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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 2014)
street roots 9 Nov. 21, 2014 HAZELWOOD, from page 8 everything they need, and for some people - they won’t read that essay. Art can speak to them more directly. I think the ability of art to speak to people is partially selective, but it also encapsulates things very quickly, and it gives people a context for all the information they might need to take in. The details can be filled in later through other means. E.G.: I found an older essay you wrote titled "Art, Artists and Activism: 1930s to Today” In it you say that the political artist should not ask whether political art is effective, but how it can have a bigger effect in the world. Have you asked yourself this question, and i f so, what was the answer? A.H.: There’s a lot of time spent in the art world wondering about what is art and . E.G.: Your essay in what is not art, and the book, "We Won’t Be "M y work Is attacking the whether political art Made Invisible: Art of powerful. So my target is the is art and whether Homeless Activism,” system as it exists and trying political art does describes the growing anything. I think it’s influences of art in the to nndermine that system. I not an important homeless community, th in k it's jnst a difference in question to ask. To What role do you think perspectiver X have tried anybody who’s art will play in the committed to a he u p liftin g 1st my future of political political cause, the imagery rather than activism in the important question is, homeless community? negative, bnt 1 feel like if “How does it work?” yon show the dark side of and “How does it A.H.: I think it things, people acknowledge function?” There are needs to constantly different kinds of it, and people understand be replenished with political a r t street new energies and new that that's what straggling posters that are directions. A lot of brings." basically telling organizations end up people to “come to working with the this rally.” That has a same artist over and different function than over again. I teach at San Quentin, and I a piece trying to explain something. To me met an artist there, who is out now - he’s what’s interesting in political art is that it homeless, and he’s making art for Street ; can explain stances to people, without them Sheet and for the WRAP, and he did the agreeing with it necessarily from the cover art for the book. He has energy and beginning, but they can look at it, and they connection to the issues. The first print he can learn something from it, and they can did for WRAP was about the prison-to- say, “Hey - this is something I now homeless pipeline, which is something he’s understand.” When the artist asks the experienced personally. If we don’t question of themselves, “What is the value constantly renew the artists involved, we of this? Or the teaching? Or is it expressing end up with a kind of stale artwork that the points of view of this organization?” I doesn’t really speak to how the issues are think that’s the valuable question to ask. changing and to people’s perceptions and needs. I think the important thing is to E.G.: Is there a particular issue where you keep people involved and keep the art think that art was particularly useful in rolling and relating to the movement sharing more information with people at a glance? really effective. E.G.: Do you think the art’s becoming stale or are there a lot of new energies entering into A.H.: WRAP, when it first started, E.G.: Your political art spans many issues, the scene? published a report called “Without from democracy and student debt to Housing.” Four artists and myself made homelessness and the U.S.-Mexico border, but A.H.: Well it comes and goes. There are posters based on data. The information was times when the artwork is really powerful very dense. It was about federal spending on one topic stands out as a sort of anomaly: Why feature the current plight of U.S. postal and really connected. I think that any housing, and it’s an issue that will make workers in your art? homeless-rights group needs to be on the people’s eyes glaze over. But if you take lookout for connecting to artists. Artists are those numbers and turn them into A.H.: I work on a lot of local issues, and sometimes very willing to be a part of something visually interesting to people, things, and sometimes they need to be that kind of encapsulates a story of what has the Berkeley post office is being sold off. So drawn in. Once those connections are made, happened and why the federal government’s I’m working with this group that’s trying to they can be very powerful connections. At organize to save the Berkeley post office, lack of spending on affordable housing has the moment I think it’s really positive. The and to me it connects with the same issue led directly to a rise in homelessness, and if previous book I did, “Hobos to Street you put that into a visual, then all of a of the destruction of the public commons People,” which is a survey of artwork about sudden, the question becomes, not “What’s that the government is cutting spending on homelessness from 1930s to the present - wrong with this person?” but, “What’s things that are useful for people: The wrong with this society?” and I think that’s the art in history you see is up and down. commons, education — and I even include more to There are those whose teeth are swords, whose teeth are Wires, to deronr the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mortals. h w rtJM M i "Beast of Hatred” by A rt Hazelwood depicts ways in which people experiencing poverty are dehumanized. Within the belly o f the beast is the media, the head represents governments and corporations, and one arm is the criminal system while the other is vigilantes - all are aspects of this beast that spews out negative comments about the poor, says Hazelwood. post office in that — public housing, all these attacks on the commons are all part of the neoliberal agenda, and I feel any way I can fight back is a valuable thing to do. (To read about Portland postal workers’ fight against closures and privatization, see page 3.) E.G.: There is a very threatening nature to many of your posters - an almost apocalyptic feel to the images. They are quite powerful. How do you decide what images to use when attempting to illustrate a particular point, and do you feel that these types of images are more effective than say, less dark images might be? A.H.: That’s a constant question that I have to deal with. I have a friend who’s a political artist and his work is almost always positive and shows iconic images of people trying to uplift His work is uplifting and powerless, and my work is attacking the powerful. So my target is the system as it exists and trying to undermine that system. I think it’s just a difference in perspective, I have tried more to be uplifting in my imagery rather than negative, but I feel like if you show the dark side of things, people acknowledge it, and people understand that that’s what struggling brings. Sometimes I’ll work with WRAP or the editor of Street Sheet and we’ll talk about an issue and they’ll explain what they want and we’ll run it by some other people in the organization. For example, right now I’m working on a poster for 25 years of the Street Sheet It’s back and forth about what is important to show, in the end the images is the Street Sheet shining a light on all the negative things in the last 25 years that have happened to poor people in San Francisco. “House Keys Not Handcuffs: Homeless Organizing, A rt and Politics in San Francisco and Beyond” is available for a $30 donation at wraphome.org.
