During the start of the culture wars in the early '90s, when Robert Mapplethorpe's controversial photos were giving social conservatives the creeps, a museum director acquaintance launched a harangue about the questionable value of any art that isn't clearly life affirming. Well, I asked, what about Guernica, Picasso's harrowing depiction of destruction during the Spanish Civil War? The painting certainly carries a strong anti-war message, but it's unlikely to give anyone a warm and fuzzy feeling.

In the abstract, most people support the
role of artists in serving as a mirror of society. But when it comes to specific works of politically themed art, one person's travesty can often be someone else's masterpiece. Fans of this kind of stuff will have a chance to indulge their taste when Drawing Resistance, a traveling show of art by 31 North American artists-activists, rolls into Providence, starting with an opening on Friday, June 7 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), 340 Lockwood St., Providence.

Plans call for the show, speaking to such subjects as globalization, working class rights, environmental destruction, corporate control, homelessness, gentrification, police brutality, and Mexico's Zapatista movement, to travel through the US, Canada, and Mexico for up to five years. With no official funding, Drawing Resistance relies on activists in the host community to get the show to its next destination -- Vermont in this case. "Like a band on tour," organizers say, "the art show is getting in the van!"

Represented artists include Carlos Cortez of Chicago, who draws on Depression-era political art; Winston Smith, known for his cover art on punk albums; collage maker Freddier Baer; and Domitila Dominguez, whose watercolors adorn a collection of folk tales by the Zapatistas' Subcommandante Marcos.

In Providence, Drawing Resistance will
remain at DARE through June 14, and it
will then be displayed at Monohasset Mill,
on Kinsley Avenue, through early July. "We want to show art that is explicitly political in a town where there's a lot of art around and galleries all the time," says David Pike, a member of Love and Resistance, a local activist group that supports the Nor'easter, an anarchist newspaper, the monthly Critical Mass bicycle ride, and similar independent efforts. "We want to connect the creative pieces -- art -- with a social movement and social consciousness.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.

Issue Date: June 7 - 13, 2002