A Green New Deal Art Movement
Like most humans around the world stuck in quarantine, I am meditating on the surreal nature of COVID-19’s implications on our daily lives, on our world being turned upside down. How does this make me feel? What am I going to do to keep myself preoccupied and stave off loneliness? Will I create art? What kid of art are my friends creating? And more broadly, what kind of art will spawn from our enforced quarantine?
When it clicked. The last physical art exhibit I attended was on Friday March 6th in the early onset COVID-19 pandemic. The virus had not reached its full pandemonium in New York City. It was just surfacing for those in New Rochelle and compromised demographics. The following week was when all major cultural institutions, offices and eventually non-essential businesses finally closed.
The exhibit I experienced was “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945” at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The curation is inspired by The New Deal art movement which followed the Great Depression. Displayed are large scale paintings and murals depicting minority laborers, mass migration, jobless american workers, and strikes. If we simulate a socially distanced version, does this sound familiar yet?
The most eye catching piece was Diego Rivera’s Man, Controller of the Universe. A work of art on loan from Mexico but inspired by a commission Rivera initially made for Rockefeller Center. This multifaceted mural has at its center an enormous male figure operating a giant machine, appearing in control of the universe. He clearly divides the composition in two, showing viewers two potential outcomes for their future and in the midst of tremendous strife in the 1930’s, that was very much an open question. The United States was experiencing an economic depression, unemployment, a stock market crash, and hunger. This focal man also sits in the center of a large X that is constructed out of condensed ellipses. In one we see the cosmos and the universe. Presumably man’s ability to understand the galaxies and our place within that. In the other we see a microcosm and bacteria, perhaps the microscopic world which allows us to cure diseases. We see the industrial revolution and the scientific. Also represented is war, soldiers in gas masks and the aloof upper class. I could go on endlessly. This imagery could not be more apropos as the parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic are drawn to The Depression and The Green New Deal (GND) is more relevant than ever, inspired by its namesake, The New Deal.
The Great Depression was the first time in U.S. history that a widespread movement of artists began addressing politics and using their art to influence society. The United States wanted to make art a tool for social change and took the Mexican revolutionary experiment as a model. Rivera was credited for inspiring President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create The Federal Art Project (FAP) (1935–1943). The FAP was formed as a relief measure to employ visual artists to create murals, easel paintings, sculpture, graphic art, posters, photography, theater design, and arts and crafts. It was part of a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted between 1933 and 1939. It responded to needs for relief, reform, and recovery from the Great Depression. Major federal programs and agencies founded included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). They provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly.
As we receive our first stimulus package of $2 trillion, experience rent halts, reach record unemployment and express profound appreciation for essential workers in the wake of Covid-19, dejavu illuminates Roosevelt’s New Deal. Except today our government has yet to do enough to support the people instead pandering to corporations. Thus it is the job of American citizens to educate and promote legislation that will support us. The GND is our answer.
Like the New Deal before it, The GND is not a single project or piece of legislation but a sweeping resolution. It includes three pillars:
1) to stop the climate crisis through a 10 year nationwide mobilization,
2) to ensure economic prosperity for all by creating millions of good jobs, and
3) to defend the dignity of the people by establishing a second bill of rights (just as The New Deal had).
The GND has been in the public lexicon years before social distancing, but is even more relevant now as we find ourselves having to re-build political, economic and social systems. As our government rolls back standards that protect our nation’s air, water, lands, climate, and public health during a public health crisis no less, I call on artists of all mediums to build a virtual Green New Deal Art Movement.
Although not funded by the government, this parallel period is already engendering quarantine art. In New York we are seeing street artists’ rapid response to representing the movement as well as individual artistic expression online. Social justice and green organizations have also rolled out their own art contests focused on education because a creative and diverse movement has power. These campaigns include: The United Nations, Ellen MaCarthur Foundation, and Beyond Plastics. “Art is one of the most powerful forms of communication,” says the Ellen MaCarthur Foundation on their Instagram post. Art is also one of the most organic forms of human expression. These contests are both cathartic and important but the real work still lies in activism.
For those who are emotionally ready, the next step I propose is movement building. We need artists to initiate action to mobilize the collective. What does this look like?
The art produced through government programs during the New Deal reflected both the hardship of the period and a vision of a better America. United by a desire to use art to promote social change, these artists sympathized with the labor movement and exhibited an affinity for left-wing politics. Art became a crude weapon aimed at exposing capitalism’s abuses and exposing the struggles of the working class. Breadlines, homelessness, and farms reduced to sand were recurring themes. Do we motivate by showing what the country currently looks like outside the windows of our homes? What is the situation like inside your home?
The successes of WPA programs were also depicted and documented. Triumphs such as the construction of vast dams to provide flood control for farmlands and generate hydroelectric power (Tennessee Valley Authority), the expansion of the electrical power grid across the country, and conservation and agriculture programs. What are ideal outcomes of a GND or People’s Bailout? Can the benefit of renewable energy be depicted alongside education about it’s inclusion in The GND?
Artists also created idealized visions for the future and experimented with abstraction, like artist Jackson Pollock, in response to the changing world around them. What systemic changes can we dream up for our country and how are they supported by The GND?
The GND is not yet an enacted resolution but one inspiring widespread social uprising. I welcome you to join mass online protests like Earth Week, April 22nd-24th. Get informed and support legislation that stands for the people. Just like the virus, art knows no hierarchy. As citizens we must fight for collective action and influence representatives to ratify widespread political change.
Click here for more movement art like Molly Crabapple’s featured here.
