From
Challenge # 81 September-October 2003
Mike Alewitz in Kufr Qara
Go Paint a Mural
Dani Ben
Simhon
Mike Alewitz, American muralist, arrived in
August to paint three walls, one in the Azeh refugee camp near Bethlehem,
another in the Anatha camp near Jerusalem, and a third in the Arab village
of Kufr Qara, located in Israel. (The Kufr Qara
mural.) On August 4 he talked to an
audience of activists and artists at the Baqa Center in Jaffa. He showed
slides of his works – many of them landmarks in the struggle for labor
rights. Several exist today in photos alone, for a mural is eminently
destructible – and one that carries political punch, like Alewitz's, will
be sandblasted at a change of regime (like Mother Earth in
Nicaragua) or upon rattling union fat-cats (like the P-9 mural in support
of the meatpackers' strike at the Hormel plant in Austin). These works and
others were resurrected at the Baqa Center. When Alewitz mentioned his
intention to paint at Kufr Qara, a young artist in the audience asked if
he might help. Alewitz pondered a moment and said, "It's not necessary for
you to help me. If you want to be of help, then go paint a mural. There
are plenty of walls out there. It's not difficult. Any artist can do it."
He went on to say, "The conditions for change are in place. The time is
right. We can prevail. But right here, right now, it's up to you. The
movement that is developing depends on you in this room."
Who is Mike Alewitz?
Alewitz began as an activist. Art came
later, as part of his effort to build a workers' movement in America and
abroad. He shook up many in the audience at the Baqa Center when, quietly
and firmly, he named the US as the foremost terrorist nation on earth. He
disturbed some among the artists too when he stated, without apology, that
the goal of his art is to further social and political ideas. At one point
he thanked the workers throughout the world who had forced him to discover
visual images to express their struggle. He calls his genre Agitprop,
short for "Agitation and Propaganda".
Three local organizations hosted the
Alewitz visit. Two work in the Occupied Territories: the Beit Jibrin
Cultural Center in the Azeh camp and the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions. In Israel, the Workers Advice Center (WAC) hosted him
for the week of August 3-8. WAC invited him to paint a mural in support of
its campaign called "A Job to Win", which seeks to put people back on the
job in the construction industry – especially the Arabs, who were once the
dominant labor force there.
Alewitz began making murals in the
mid-eighties, after working as a sign and billboard painter. Since then he
has painted in Nicaragua, Mexico, Chernobyl, Baghdad, and throughout the
US – always in concert with the local unions. "The connection between
mural painting and the labor movement is strongest," he told
Challenge, "at the moment of struggle, when the
workers have a definite message to express. Then a painting becomes a
significant weapon. For example, at the start of the Russian revolution,
or the one in Nicaragua, public art played a central role."
A mural, says Alewitz, can educate workers
to solidarity while recalling forgotten parts of the local labor struggle.
In the history of the working class, many stories – and inspiring figures
– are virtually lost, because the capitalist class has taken care to
expunge them. This working-class history, rescued from oblivion, can be a
precious asset in the effort to organize. At the Azeh camp near Bethlehem,
for example, Alewitz placed a huge loaf of bread in the center of the
picture, together with a dozen red roses. He frequently uses this image,
recalling the strike of the textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts,
1912, when the women raised banners saying: "We want bread and roses!" If
they focus only on job conditions ("bread"), unions fail to develop the
workers' consciousness ("roses"). Here, together with the unions, art can
play a decisive role.
To the historical dimension Alewitz brings
the spirit of the new era. "Access to art has been denied to workers. They
were taught that it wasn't for them, that they shouldn't visit museums.
There are workers who love to paint, but most will be embarrassed to tell
you." He adds, "When I come to a place, I can't know the situation as well
as the local people. Therefore, I look for subjects and images that are
universal, that will be understood by workers everywhere. I paint people
purple or green or blue, and sometimes I paint them without a clear gender
– hermaphrodites. Agitprop artists need to experiment and develop an
imagery to express the multi-hued nature of the workers' movement today –
and not to fall back on clichés."
Alewitz remains a strong believer in
activism. At the Baqa Center he said, "I have not come because I think I
can change something here. I have come so I can take the images back with
me and use them in the American working class, to show people how the
situation here relates to their own."
For more on Alewitz's work, see Paul Buhle
and Mike Alewitz, Insurgent Images: The Agitprop Murals of Mike Alewitz,
New York, Monthly Review Press, 2002.
WAC's Part in the Project
Alewitz and Christine Gauvreau direct the
Labor Art and Mural Project (LAMP). In the spring they contacted us
at WAC, saying they wanted to paint in Israel and Palestine. We were happy
to offer our help – and a wall. The question was which wall? We have many
work teams in many villages, but there would only be one mural.
Our choice fell on the village of Kufr
Qara, for we had recognized one of its teams for excellence in 2002-03.
The mural project set off a welter of activity in the village. People
organized supplies, food and logistics. Toward the end of the first
preparatory meeting, after the allotment of tasks, Farid Atamneh, himself
an artist, said, "This is all very fine, but who's going to paint it?" On
hearing the answer, he exclaimed, "What! Him? To our village? All the way
from America?"
Soon after his arrival, I accompanied
Alewitz to a building site near Tel Aviv, where workers from Kufr Qara
were on the job. In a conversation during the break, Alewitz stressed that
George W. Bush does not represent the American people and certainly not
its working class. He described the movement opposing the war and the part
that labor unions have in the protest.
A week later, after he had finished the
mural near Bethlehem, we met at the wall in Kufr Qara. Although on the
edge of the village, it occupies 21 square meters at the entrance to a
sports stadium serving the whole region. The local council had approved.
The workers had cleared the area and erected a scaffold.
They returned from their day of labor and
sat with Alewitz. He asked what they wanted the mural to convey. Among the
responses was this: "We want a painting that will attract more workers to
join us in WAC and help organize."
In his preliminary sketches, Alewitz sought
a picture that would answer to the workers' need for a union to defend
their rights while, at the same time, breaking the walls between workers
that "Mr. Moneybags" erects to exploit them.
As the deadline approached, Alewitz
accepted the help of local artists, including two from WAC. The work each
day went from sunrise to sunset, 14 hours. The only breaks were for food
in the homes of the workers, who took turns hosting the team. On the last
day, with the dedication ceremony scheduled for the evening, there wasn't
even time to leave for a meal. Muss'ab Atamneh, whose turn had come to
provide the food, would not be daunted. The astonished painters watched as
serving dishes appeared: dozens of courses spread on carpets among the
cans of paint and the brushes.
Workers and Artists Speak
Muss'ab Atamneh was among the most active
in organizing the Alewitz visit to Kufr Qara, and he also took part in the
painting. He says: "The visit helped deepen the connection between WAC and
the village. People were astonished that WAC would bring an American
artist to us. Apart from this, the artistic result was a delightful
surprise. My team workers tell me they are getting enthusiastic responses
from the neighbors. Although the soccer season hasn't yet begun, people
drive out to the stadium to look at the mural. Personally, I think it's
very important to us, the members of WAC, because it shows that WAC is
concerned not only with our working conditions, but also with the lives we
live when the work day is done."
Ra'afat Khattab is an art student in Jaffa
and a leader of its Baqa Center. He took part in the project from start to
finish: "This experience has been most important to me. In my work at the
Baqa Center, I take it as a guiding principle that art should contribute
to social progress, but that goes against what I'm learning in college.
There, and in the Israeli artistic milieu generally, they sanctify
individualistic art. In working with Alewitz, I saw what potential there
is in the genre of mural painting."
Hillel Roman, a young artist from Tel Aviv,
works as a volunteer with children at the Baqa Center. He also took part
in the painting. "At the lecture in Jaffa, it was impressive to hear an
artist who travels throughout the world engaging with workers and taking
part in their struggles. I was also struck by his work, which goes against
the stream of establishment art in galleries and museums. I was interested
to hear his opposition to the existing order, how he identifies with the
oppressed. I asked myself at once, of course, how come I sit at home or
show my work in a gallery. He explained very well that in galleries and
museums, the level of our opposition as artists is limited to the existing
order, because otherwise they simply won't show our work. So I asked
myself, What then? Am I a collaborator?
"On the other hand, I think the question is
more complex. I still prefer to make a division, to keep what I create as
a tool for personal expression, and to contribute to society in other
ways, as when I volunteer at the Baqa Center, teaching kids to express
themselves through painting… About the notion of 'art for a cause', I
think art is the stepchild of two classes: it is crushed between the
bourgeoisie, who speculate in it and stick it in museums, and the working
class, who flatten it into ideology (even if the latter has merit). Art
never reaches the point of identifying with either class, or when it does
so, it ceases to be interesting. Alewitz concedes that he is making
propaganda, and as such his work has a lot of power."
The Kufr Qara mural was unveiled on August
8 toward evening. Its bold orange sky glows above the solid green of
its hills and the blue silhouettes of cities. We see two panels, almost
symmetrical, each with a wall, partly broken, stretching from the
foreground into the distance. Asymmetry is provided by Mr. Moneybags, who
escapes with the loot on a flying carpet. Out of the earth arise great
fists, brick-red, clenched in labor's traditional gesture of defiance and
solidarity. Banners proclaim the message in Arabic, Hebrew and English:
"No Walls Between Workers!"
n
Return to story.
Video 48 accompanied Alewitz's visit to
Kufr Qara, and soon it will produce a film about it. We welcome
contributions to cover the costs of production and distribution.
Please send them to Hanitzotz Publishing House, P.O. Box 41199, Jaffa
61411, Israel, along with a note saying: "For the film about Mike
Alewitz in Kufr Qara."
For related articles, please visit WAC's
web page: WAC Home