Charles Giuliano is a Boston based artist, curator and critic. He is a contributor to Nyartsmagazine, and the director of exhibitions for The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University. He is represented by FLATFILESphotography GALLERY in Chicago.

DNC Descends on Boston

Nos Moratamur te Salutamus

Let the Games Begin


This week, as Boston hosts the Democratic National Convention the eyes and ears of the world will focus on our city. For natives, the compelling question has been is this a place to be or not to be?

For months the local media have swamped us with horror stories of anti-terrorist security measures, closed highways and T stops. Schools and businesses have been urged to close or cut hours. Many have opted to take their vacations this week and avoid the mess. While restaurants, bars, cabs and adult escorts have geared up for boffo business. Seems every hotel, caterer or hair salon in a fifty mile radius is slammed.

Everyone appears to have their own strategy to cope, party to the max, or head for the hills. The police, seeking a contract for the past couple of years, have leveraged the occasion to rain on the parade of host mayor, Thomas Menino, (AKA Mumbles) who has spared no effort to beautify the city. But stopped short of appeasing high end contract demands and threats of pickets that have resulted in numerous party cancellations. No right thinking politician crosses a picket line.

While the police and their union demands have been handled with kid gloves, protesters, who have legitimate beefs about the current direction of the nation at war, will be caged off in a holding pen near the Fleet Center. That appears to be a violation of rights to free speech and assembly and an invitation for disaster. There is a lot  about America right now that is either dead wrong or deeply troubling.

This week we will be in town. Astrid has been planning routes and strategies to get to work while I intend to take the T to get as close as I can to the thick of it, camera at the ready, and document the experience.

Haven’t done that kind of reporting in a long time. Since the summer of 1969 when there was an anti war riot in Harvard Square. I was the rock critic for the Boston Herald-Traveler and as such I had requested and gotten official police press credentials. Although not on assignment for the Herald that night, indeed I could have gotten into a ton of trouble with my editors, I planned to attend the event as a private citizen. I felt I had to be there. It was war man. Had to see and feel, stand up and be counted. Street Fightin Man.

But I was there to observe and document. Then kids started trashing windows. My strategy was that if things got rough I would whip out my press pass and the cops, actually we called them pigs back then, wouldn’t crack my scull.

Wrong. At some point a phalanx of cops just charged the crowd with dogs, clubs and mace. It got gonzo fast. I started to run with everyone else and managed somehow to get over to a side street and out of harm’s way.

Another night I spent at the Museum School helping to silk screen protest posters. A generation later, like many aging academics, I wonder about the political apathy of students. One time when I was berating them about it a student said, “Oh Mr. G., you’re so Joan Baez.” Nailed.

Which is precisely why I find a number of small, grass roots efforts at political art, springing up all over Boston in response to the DNC, both riveting and oddly nostalgic. There is a sense of déjà vu all over again as the works on view range from sharp and insightful to cartoonish and achingly naïve. It raises yet again the classic issues of the differences of good art for a good cause, bad art for a good cause, or good art for a bad cause.

This is a conundrum which has always hung over any attempts to address issues of social and political concern. How to make art in a timeless manner and not just a knee jerk reaction. Not to remain mute while actions that are terribly wrong are perpetrated in the name of all Americans.

Many of these concerns surfaced yesterday when a young curator and friend, James Manning, and I toured a number of exhibitions in Boston and Cambridge that focused on artist responses to Post 9/11 America and the policies of the Bush administration. He organized an exhibition, Give Me Some Truth, at the New England School of Art & Design (75 Arlington Street, Boston). Although he has curated more than 50 shows this was his first attempt to organize an exhibition with a political theme. It mixes established and emerging artists. Including an installation of a
sample of digital images that I have pursued since the events of 9/11.

While organizing his own exhibition Manning made contact with curators undertaking political exhibitions. They pooled their resources to create a flier listing their events. I asked Jim to take me around to see other projects.  

Critics for the major publications and media tend to ignore experimental venues and even convey misinformation. By electing to cover one or two events, when in fact there are many more, the critic conveys the false impression of being on top of the action. The worst review is to be ignored. In a Boston Phoenix review, Christopher Millis, stated that there were three shows in response to the DNC, when in fact there were many more. He should read his mail more carefully. In the Globe, Cate McQuaid opted to cover just one of the many shows while stating that, “I have a low tolerance for political art, no matter what the point of view, it tends to be more shrill than enlightening.” Perhaps that is her justification for not bothering to cover more of these
timely shows. Just how does that serve readers seeking information on events related
to the DNC?

Not that I am really all that much better. I regret not making a greater effort to keep on top of alternative venues.

When we were trying to find Zeitgeist Gallery, in Cambridge, for example, I drove to their former site only to find it closed. “That space had a fire a couple of years ago,” Jim informed me with droll wit. They are now located at 1353 Cambridge Street in Inman Square. It is one of those spaces I have been meaning to get to. Similarly, for some time Jim had been urging me to visit Art Interactive at 130 Bishop Allen Drive, in Central Square, Cambridge. They have earned a reputation for new media. Holland Cotter, in a piece on Boston geared for the DNC, covered them in the Friday, July 23, New York Times. Something is not right when national media pay
more attention to alternative spaces than local scribes.

Accordingly, I apologized to the curator of the current exhibition “Participatory Democracy,” George Fifield, that this was my first visit. He is the adjunct curator of New Media for the DeCordova Museum and the founder of the Cyberarts Festival. Because of the presence of MIT, Mass Art, The Museum School and other arts education programs, this is an area of creativity in which Boston is a national and global presence.

Not surprisingly, Fifield’s show is hip, insightful and raucously fun. He made a special effort to be on hand to give us a personal tour accompanied by one of the six participating artists, Ravi Jain. Fifield explained that he selected several artists whom he respected and directed them to work collaboratively.

Before entering the space we were required to view a video narrated by Donald Burgy, one of the national treasures of new media, and a professor at Mass Art. It was hilarious as in a deadpan manner he prepared us for the absurd process of voting for ersatz presidential candidates including the Bearded Lady and Contortionist. After the video Ravi gave us a briefing, conducted a survey, then distributed voting materials.

In the main gallery I voted by throwing darts. I wildly missed the target but managed to hit the wall. It was ugly. Then I attempted to bowl my vote. Again with terrible results. Finally my ballot, which I had been told to not bend or fold in any manner, would not fit through the slot. I tossed it on the floor in frustration.

It proved to be a strangely accurate take on the absurdity of the political process. This week the space is open from 11 AM through 6 PM with a closing bash on Thursday the last night of the DNC.

We moved on to Zeitgeist which has a show of political posters as well as a
series of performances and events. There is also an Art of Dissent Walking Tour as
several neighboring merchants have consented to display posters in their windows.
You can pick up a map at the gallery.

Viewing the posters I truly loved the energy and rage of a new and enlightened generation. It is what a lot of us old rads have been longing for. But also a sense of gnawing disappointment at how quickly such didactic visual punch lines loose their edge. This has always been the death trap of political art.

During Jim’s opening, for example, we talked with Arnold Trachtman one of the masters of the protest art of the Vietnam and Watergate era. A number of visitors had tried to identify several characters in a triptych based on the Republican conventions of Reagan and Goldwater. We asked Arnie who they were but he couldn’t remember. There is also large work with Reagan, several accomplices and a backdrop  of soldiers.

“I thought Vietnam was over during the Reagan years,” I commented to him. “No, that’s Iran Contra,” he replied. All those conflicts seem to merge on the foggy lens of memory. Will the events of the moment, depicted with such passion by young artists, also fade away? Time does make cowards of us all. While we loose the details, more significantly, his paintings endure the test of time.

We moved on to the Fort Point Arts Community Gallery (FPAC) in a basement space of an artist loft building, at 300 Summer Street, near South Station to view “Virtual Democracy.” One of the two curators, Joanne Kalinotzis, (and Danielle Kromar) was on hand to give us a tour. She explained that text is important to her concept of exhibitions as the space is often visited by diners at the Channel Café which it adjoins. In her view the work is not always evident to the general public.

Accordingly each work has a long label and text as well as a posted statement by the curators. On Monday, July 26 there will be an evening of music and poetry in the Café from 7 to 10 PM.

From a call to artists there were some 30 submissions from which the curators made this selection. Again, the works on view were uneven. Overall, the video pieces were stronger and more focused than the works in paint and sculpture. It is interesting that Kaliontzis, a gifted graphic designer, made a terrific poster and announcement based on the “Tattered Flag” by Joanna Kao, while the work itself is weak. Several small embroidered works by the South African artist, Ilona Anderson, however, were riveting. The artist grabs you by the throat and gives you a good tossing about.

The video work of Sarina Khan Reddy once again proved absorbing, visually stunning, and rich in content. Over a clip of the Taliban meeting cordially with Ronald Reagan (they were fighting the evil empire at the time) she has lines of text and facts that make a stunning case for how politics breeds strange bedfellows. We have a strange history of having armed and trained the “evil doers” and “terrorists” from Hussein to Bin Laden. With biting irony Khan Reddy skewers that process.

Another mesmerizing video was produced by a New York based artist group,  The Barnstormers. With a time lapsed, jerky, speeded up process we view artists working on a large floor area to make a huge painting depicting a letter to Bush with an array of issues and grievances. It is an amazingly compelling piece.

In a slower paced and more insidious manner we are invited to sit in an old fashioned pupil’s chair/ desk and scroll through vintage educational loops, unaltered, by Liz Nofziger, that focus on our history and propaganda. The happy days of the Civil War, Immigration, Nationalism, and the Industrial Revolution. It reflects on how politically naïve we were in the 50s and 60s. That was then and this is now appears to be her message.

Next we drove to Jamaica Plain to view “Church and State” at Art Market, 36 South Street. While this was my first visit, I was surprised to learn that the space had been in operation since 1991. Jim has a piece in the show, a digital image of a 9/11 memorial that he shot during a visit to New York just days after the event. There were also small Polaroids by rocker Patti Smith and several drawings by Allen Ginsburg. They make a visit rewarding but overall the show was eclectic.

While in JP, we swung by Green Street one of the best known alternative venues in the city. It famously occupies space in a T station and gets incredible exposure and traffic. We were disappointed that it was closed for installation but the director, James Hull, who was walking his dog, spotted us and let us in for a beer and sneak preview of “Yankee Remix/ Remix: Artist’s Take on New England.” It was a show originally at Mass MoCA last year in collaboration with Historic New England presented here in a reduced form. The artists include Rina Banerjee, Zoe Leonard, Lorna Simpson and Frano Violvich. The exhibition responded to objects in the collection of Historic New England and Hull stated that visitors to the DNC might find these
contemporary reflections on Revolutionary era Boston quite timely. We agree.

There are other exhibitions and events of note going on during the DNC. Some time back I visited Gallery Kayafas, 450 Harrison Avenue, which is presenting, “John Kerry: A Portrait 1969 to the Present,” by his lifelong friend, photographer, George Butler. Given the nature of the subject Butler did his best with the material.

I regret that we did not visit the Cambridge Muticultural Art Center, 41 Second Street which is presenting, “Shocked and Awed,” an exhibition of works by students at Al Assail Primary School in Baghdad. Howard Zinn and Dennis Kucinic will be on hand to speak at the opening reception on July 26 from 7-9 PM.

And I did not attend Teabagging on The Common, at the Hatch Shell on July 23 with the team of performance artists Carolyn Lambert and Fereshteh Toosi. They are currently fellows at the Berwick Institute in Roxbury. The women wear Colonial era wigs, britches and hats while handing out tea bags with special text messages and conduct surveys with passersby. They made a cameo appearance during Jim’s opening and I interacted with them briefly. He is urging me to become better acquainted with the programming of the Berwick Institute.

At day’s end we shared a pizza in a pub in Eastie. Jim and I debriefed the gallery tour. There were points of agreement as well as disparity. Jim passionately debates the views and efforts of his peers. I did not share his enthusiasm for much of the work. But the dialogue is crucial. It was exciting and challenging to feel such energy and commitment. Perhaps, the kids are all right after all.

Y’All Come Back