Simultaneously, there were other movements and organizations that were emerging and changing the state of independent culture and politicizing young people. This time period saw a proliferation of art collectives from the Critical Art Ensemble and Yes Men to the BeeHive Design Collective and the No RNC poster project. Diverse communities of cultural producers and political organizers came together with events such as the Drawing Resistance traveling exhibition (organized by Sue Simensky Bietila and Nicolas Lampert, now a member of Justseeds), the Department of Space and Land Reclamation convergences, and a wide range of locally oriented and anti-war exhibitions.
One of those projects was the No RNC Poster Collective, which developed around a protest against the Republican National Convention (RNC) meetings in 2004 in New York City and eventually morphed into a regular and consistent group called Visual Resistance (VR). For several years, VR was responsible for networking and documenting street artists and activists throughout the city and developed such ambitious projects as the Ghost Bike memorials to bikers killed by cars. The group’s blog was the critical counterpart to a growing industry of slick graffiti websites and coffee table books—they offered a space for people concerned with content and ideas in addition to having a general interest in public space and unsolicited public art. It was graffiti with a message. Several members of VR met MacPhee as he started to gain more attention on a national scale and through the networking and exhibition projects he was initiating.
It’s been amazing to have so many people offer help, and enlightening to realize how few places there are to get interesting, intelligent, and political art.
As Justseeds continued to expand, it outgrew MacPhee’s home office in Chicago. In 2004, he connected with the folks at the then-thriving and now-deceased magazine Clamor, for whom he had previously produced graphics, and they took over his inventory and mailorder. This arrangement only lasted two years before Clamor had financial problems that forced it to stop production. The bank foreclosed Clamor’s online store, which was the “backend” of several small businesses (one of the largest being Justseeds) that went down with it.
After slaving away unpaid to distribute ideas and organize artists, now was the test to see who was listening. Following a plea to his list of e-mail subscribers, MacPhee received over 80% of the funds needed to stay afl oat in just three weeks. In his next e-mail, MacPhee offered thanks to the donors, writing, “It’s been amazing to have so many people offer help, and enlightening to realize how few places there are to get interesting, intelligent, and political art.” He also used this occasion to warn fans of Justseeds that there were changes in the future—changes for the better—and to not forget the project while it went into a hiatus for several months to reorganize. Unbeknownst to fans and supporters, MacPhee was in talks to combine Justseeds with a network of individual artists (mostly printmakers and graffiti artists) and the Visual Resistance group. In the fall of 2007, the “Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists’ Cooperative” was formed. The collective’s initial e-mail newsletter read: “Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists’ Cooperative is a community of artists who have banded together to collaborate and sell their work. Our website is not just a place to shop, but also a destination to find out about current events in radical art and culture. Our blog covers political printmaking, socially engaged street art, and culture related to social movements.”
Justseeds retreat (photo by Robin Hewlett)
Composed of over a dozen artists living in five states, JS/VR Artists’ Cooperative is a diverse bunch capable of doing more work in more places that MacPhee ever could have accomplished on his own. The aesthetics of JS/VR reference the baby-boomer era as well as the 1930s, but the group’s varied composition results in a much more diverse aesthetic than the left has seen in one place in recent memory. The influences come from historical social movements as much as from youth cultures like punk and hip hop.
Speaking about the networking potential of working in a group, JS/VR member Nicolas Lampert explained, “All these contacts expand the reach of Justseeds. Of course, being a decentralized co-op also allows each artist to focus more on the city/region that they operate out of, which has been great for developing new projects and for tabling local events. We have also divided the tasks of running the co-op, so that the workload is shared.”
Though some of the members are self-taught, others went to art school to be trained and have had recognition in the commercial art market. Still, what primarily ties these artists together is their commitment to engage audiences through distribution and dissemination. Some may use street posts and walls, whereas others distribute via snail mail, zines, and T-shirts. They see a direct relationship between audience and distribution, which is the result of spending years participating in sub-cultures that are invested in their own networks and audiences.
The cooperative’s Web store only carries the creations of members that work to keep it afloat—thus making it a worker-run company. Every month there are new posters and graphic projects being added to the store. The blog is increasingly becoming an online hub for anyone interested in the intersection of art and politics, and it places a particular emphasis on street art, graphics, posters, and collectives. One can also find reports of the members’ travels, as well as tons of calls for participation in art shows, publications, and campaigns. The calls to action are a characteristic that is especially important to this crew, because it wants to build stronger and more functional networks of socially engaged artists. The site creates an entry point into a world that is gaining prominence and promise—a world where art makers are talking, collaborating, merging, and working. The story of Justseeds from old to new is inspiring for those of us that believe in cooperation—and in the role that cultural production plays in envisioning the world more like we want it to be.
For more information:
www.justseeds.org or www.myspace.com/justseedscooperative. Daniel Tucker works as an organizer in Chicago, focused primarily on public space, social movement history, and geography. He is currently the editor of the biannual journal and public program series AREA Chicago (art/research/education/activism— areachicago.org). For more information, see miscprojects.com.