ARTIST CALL- Against U.S. Intervention

...At one point we worried that New York's eightnight performance festival, for instance, would be too much of a good thing on top of all the other events...

...It has not only been covered nationally by news media (excluding The New York Times, which has totally ignored this unprecedented phenomenon), but more important, thousands of cultural people as yet unaligned have mobilized around Central American issues...

...The substantial international networks being formed by ARTISTS CALL will permit artists to continue to think, to grow and to organize around political concerns-to create and to expand communications with other artists as well as with the new audiences...

...In- tervention in Central America...

...All the presentations sold out...

...Though torn from their roots and their audiences, they maintain proud connections with their heritages...

...In Philadelphia a portable photography show was mounted in the streets...

...Why Central America...

...It has come as a shock to many North American cultural workers to realize that our colleagues in El Salvador and Guatemala are targeted for repression, torture and death precisely because of their talents as communicators...

...Real Avenue of the Americas ARTISTS CALL has varied in each city, depending on the character of the cultural, Hispanic and political communities...

...There is no greater collective effort, no greater participatory performance, no more significant art work, than the project of freedom...

...a "Rice, Beans and Well Wishes" sculptural installation gathered sustenance for refugees...

...One of the most important aspects of ARTISTS CALL has been the way in which it has strengthened the national and international solidarity among artists, and personalized our common grounds...

...The exiled artists often show little inclination to plunge into our esthetic melting pot...

...ARTISTS CALL is the largest cultural campaign of its kind ever organized in the United States...

...In Chicago, "Big Pine Two" was an evening vigil at Federal Plaza, complete with pine trees...

...In many cities, a new kind of arts community is possible, combining elements from the conventional art and intellectual worlds and the various Hispanic groups...

...Although events wound down in March (and in New York, wind back up again with a music festival in May), ARTISTS CALL is finding it hard to dissolve...

...ARTISTS CALL general statement, January 1984 On January 28, almost a thousand people wearing black walked single file from the aircraft carrier Intrepid on the Hudson River (our museum of war) to the Judson Memorial Church on New York's Washington Square (our museum of peace, housing three exhibitions of art for, from and about Central America...

...ARTISTS CALL differs from precedents set during the Vietnam War, not only in its vaster scale but in the level of consciousness that had grown up from the grassroots during the supposedly silent 1970s...

...There was a peace vigil in Raleigh, North Carolina, major shows in Seattle, Houston and Detroit...

...In New York on January 21, West Broadway, in the heart of the SoHo art scene, was transformed into La Verdadera Avenida de las Americas with guerrilla theater and rows of banner portraits of Latin cultural heroes...

...Into the Front Yard At the same time, more and more North Americans are visiting Nicaragua, where they witness firsthand the burst of creative energies that followed the revolution...

...The project's success has surprised even its most dedicated organizers...

...intervention...

...Instead, it seemed that each night generated more energy...

...ARTISTS CALL's stated goals are to raise consciousness, to affect publicopinion and to express the cultural sector's outrage at the Reagan Administration's disastrous policies in Central America...

...In San Francisco, events ranged from Angela Davis speaking on Grenada to "famous artists" shows, to breakdancers working the streets...

...Central America is closer to us now, not just because it's in the news, not just because we clearly share its future, but also because the flow of political and economic refugees into North America includes exiled professors, students and artists...

...By winter the idea had spread to 27 other cities in the United States and Canada, and it now incorporates poets, writers, performers, video and filmmakers, musicians and theater people...

...In the double process, Latin culture has become more familiar and more accessible to many North Americans...

...As writer Charles Frederick put it on his return from Nicaragua, "Culture is human beings creating their own reality in a specific location...

...cultural autonomy for Central American peoples...

...A huge rusty chain was cut with an acetylene torch by Peruvian artist Carmen Sanchez, in a symbolic gesture for freedom...

...These networks are cross-cultural, and crossdisciplinary (as well as "cross-political" in the sense that liberal and Left do not find themselves at cross-purposes...

...The Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia calendars were multipaged and multi-faceted...

...Film, video and news photography have been particularly effective in bringing Central American life out of the back yard and into the front yard...

...Working so closely with Latin Americans has expanded the North American vision of creative power...

...Right now it looks as though the best artists or anyone else can do to improve the situation in Central America is defeat Ronald Reagan in November...

...As more artists begin to take responsibility for the dissemination of images and ideas, the connections between culture and social action become clearer and the arts become more effective...

...Self-expression is a prerequisite for self-empowerment...

...The growing awareness and creative intensity in the air was often almost tangible...

...ARTISTS CALL was formed as an organizing committee rather than an ongoing organization...

...Images of the caricatured Banana Republics, of ancient ruins and colorful Indian cultures which once seemed so distant have given way to a new and grimmer reality in the past two years...

...So many people still want to participate, or organize new cities, that we seem to have a responsibility to continue, at least through the elections...

...Each marcher wore the name of a person missing or murdered in Central America...

...Why artists...

...At the end of this mourning procession, each name was read out loud and then tied to a balloon and released in a colorful celebration of hope...

...In Burlington, Vermont, a storefront was rented for a paint-in and performances were held at the local shopping mall...

...There is no better way to set artists thinking about issues than to ask them to put their art on the line...

...It began in-the New York visual arts community last May, at the initiative of the young Institute for the Arts and Letters of El Salvador in Exile (INALSE...

...The "Procession for Peace" was one of hundreds of events taking place across the continent in January as part of ARTISTS CALL Against U.S...

...Whatever its life span, ARTISTS CALL will remain a cultural campaign, encouraging Central American artists to create the sketches, the scores, the new monuments and images with which to frame the issues and color public opinion...

...Although the progressive art community formed its backbone, the impressive array of commercial galleries, small museums and extremely wellknown artists participating enhanced ARTIST CALL's public stature...

...Funds raised from the events and sale of art will support cultural work in Nicaragua and education and unions in El Salvador and, in some cities, Medical Aid to El Salvador or Guatemalan refugees...

...In New York alone there were 31 exhibitions and some 50 events...

...Because it represents a broad spectrum of ages, politics, esthetics and nationalities, its "line" has been simple: No U.S...