CALL to ARTISTS: performance and visual artists in LA. Present your cause, get paid.

Pershing Square (Olive and 6th Streets).
Site of the upcoming USSSA rally on Sunday, July 15th.

CALL to ARTISTS: Visual and performance artists with a political cause

USSSA’s revolution: an artist organized rally

When: Sunday, July 15^th (2:30 - 4:30pm)

Where: Pershing Square (corner of Olive and 6^th Streets)

Deadline: July 11^th, 2012

Who:  Any performance or visual artist who is committed to a political cause and is compelled to voice its relevance in a public forum.  Suzanne Lacy, Sharon Hayes and William Pope.L are notable precedents for artists in the public forum and the richness and complexity of public discourse continues to proliferate among contemporary artists.  Street art and protest art are especially potent forces among the LA arts community and all forms of speech (silent and visual, vocal and pedantic) are welcome.

Why:  Artists represent a variety of causes that are often neglected by mainstream media.   Documentation of this event will be included with subsequent rallies in Chicago and New York.  It will be made available on YouTube and eventually be included in USSSA exhibitions (with name credits to all the artists.)

What:  In response to authoritarian models of speech (one speaker, one platform, a large homogeneous audience, corporate/militant organization) this rally is set-up to be more accessible and to widely represent important causes that are often pushed to the margins.

    ·      Artists stand on level-ground in an oval-formation.

    ·      Each artist speaks/performs for one minute (cued by a bell.)

    ·      Each artist receives 50% of the proceeds from USSSA’s current fundraising page on Indiegogo.

    ·      Each artist will be credited by name in the documentation of the rally, in exhibition and online video formats.

To register for one of our available slots, please email the following information to usssartists[at]gmail[dot]com:

    ·      Name

    ·      A URL link to your work and/or at least three images at no less than 300dpi.

    ·      Tell us about the issue you will be performing/speaking about, in 1-20 words.  Remember, everyone has one minute so it's best to be clear and concise.

    ·      A PA and mic will be furnished.  Please inform us if you require additional props or if your presentation poses any evident risk.

    ·      Please write “Pershing Square artist rally” in the subject header.

To learn more about our exhibition and current artists, including Wafaa Bilal, Sarah Sense and Dread Scott, visit: http://www.facebook.com/USSSartists

no agendas, no manifesto

Life by meaning of the word has lost its value.

Agendas and manifestos of the 20^th century have generated a boundary that—on one side—protects and represents the unique and dissenting qualities of specific individuals.  On the other side of that same boundary, there is a majority that can confidently label said people as “other” to effectively exploit and corrale this group into their means.

Words that once meant “something of action” have either become hijacked epithets serving the ill judgments of a passive and neutralized status quo . . .

“Radical”

“Liberal”

“Alternative”

“Progressive”

 . . . or identifiers for a biased and blind-spotted extreme-cum-majority.

“Patriot”

“Democratic”

“Activist”

“Visionary”

. . . we once had the value of potential and change; introducing something that was “different.”  Now, these words carry visions of people as abstract entities; they represent and perpetuate a second-class norm.  Whereas people were once judged for their physical appearance and cultural  manifestation, they are now judged (and harmed, and exploited) in realities that are far less visually apparent; they are victims of institutional and psychological warfare.

People are vilified and perpetuated as abstract entities . . . void of a rich personal history . . . void of generations of family dynamics (that very much overlap with any other person of this world) . . . void of an emotional present moment and void of a future that can be different.

“Equality,” “sustainability,” and “transparency”—words that once described the vision of a better tomorrow—are in actuality tools of those in power, these Masters of the Word.  The mighty words of the “Declaration of Independence,” of the “Constitution” and of the “Bill of Rights” once served as the foundation for a united nation.  However, these ideals—and the words of their inaugural form—are at risk for being rendered obsolete by the powers of human nature and industry.

"Fathing Founders" (censor 2) by imagici, pen & watercolor, 2012

I had a dream.

I asked Benjamin Franklin,

“What is a ‘loyalist’?”

“What can I buy for a nickel?”

“Have you earned your PhD?”

“Can you sing the 'Star-Spangled Banner'?”

“Have you ever played baseball or made an apple pie?”

“Have you ever slept a summer’s night in Alabama with the windows open?”

“Are you homophobic?”
"Have you watched someone die?"

“Have you ever had tea with someone from Afghanistan?”

when our people . . .

do our words change?

when our industries . . .

do our words change?

All lost value of our “words” to be considered, the authorities of our social, cultural, and political realities are predictable because they thrive on statistics and projections.  They thrive on an economy, religion, science and academia of their design; our media and technology are created and perpetuated by their own sky-like hand.

Psychology does not belong to the authorities—everyone has a mind.

Politics do not belong to the authorities—everyone has a part in this “social fabric.”

Today, you may choose to not write your agenda.

You may even choose to not speak about your hopes.

Live as you will and create as you must.

Find, seek and trust that which is deemed intensely true for the people and situations that you encounter.

Ask of their philosophies and credos.

Learn more about their ways of thinking.

Organize and disassemble, as needed.

In a world where everyone is supposedly “free” or “in pursuit of happiness,” bring a personal (and possibly, a collective) sense of value to your actions.  Write a new declaration of intrapersonal interdependence . . .

. . . or not.

"Fathing Founders" (censor 1) by imagici, pen & watercolor, 2012

*  A full, uncensored version of the image "Fathing Founders" can be received by request at usssartists[at]gmail[dot]com and will be available for auction in July, 2012.  Proceeds will go to the artists of USSSA in preparing for the October exhibition.