"Wherever I go, I get the biggest drum I can find," says artist Eric Drooker. "I like to be out there making a lot of noise."
"Noise" doesn't just refer to the sound that comes from a drum for Drooker. It refers to his images of snarling police dogs, oppressed homeless people, brave squatters, beautiful women and vicious law enforcement officers that pop up in cities across the country on posters, fliers, stencils, and even on magazine covers.
During his long involvement in the anti-gentrification battles in the Lower East Side, Drooker's artwork was used as a form of communication and inspiration. The '80s and early '90s on the Lower East Side could be considered one of the defining battles against gentrification in the country, including a bloody struggle for control of Tompkins Square Park, a long-time refuge for the homeless, street artists, and musicians which was cleared out and fenced off at the behest of developers. Drooker's work was used in posters, fliers, zines, and newsletters to inform people about the underground battles going on between the haves and have-nots and to stir them to action.
Along with a pervasive presence in New York City, Drooker's work has popped up on lampposts and walls around the world, in zines across the country and in community and non-profit groups' fliers and newsletters. His artwork has graced album covers of bands both tiny and huge and he has been featured in magazines as diverse as The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Spin, and Maximum Rock'n'Roll. He has also had a number of books published, including the seminal graphic novel Flood! A Novel in Pictures
In late 2002 he completed a book tour for
his latest work, Blood Song: A Silent Ballad and he continues
his art and activism from the Bay Area.
In a nutshell what is the theme of Blood Song? How is this different from your past novel in pictures, Flood!?
The theme of my latest book is global expansion run amok--with its
techno-economic and military forces on a warpath of self-destruction,
all seen through the eyes of a young girl. It's a coming of age story,
told without words, relying solely on pictures to tell the tale. Flood! was my first
attempt at telling a story by purely visual means. Whereas
Flood! was largely autobiographical, about a city dweller with
his cat living in the last days of the 20th century, Blood Song
is about a girl and her dog living in the jungle, in an uncertain time.
In the book's opening pages, we follow the girl going down to the river,
to fetch some water. When she discovers blood flowing between her legs,
we realize that she is no longer a girl--but a young woman who is about
to embark on an epic journey. Upon her return home, she notices
helicopters landing in her village, and, to her horror, witnesses the
massacre of her family, and the immolation of her home. She is chased
through the jungle by soldiers, but manages to outrun them. At the edge
of the forest, she finds a small rowboat in which she escapes from her
native island--which goes up in flames--and rows across the
ocean...ultimately landing on the shores of a 21st Century metropolis.
How does this fit into globalization, the war on terrorism and US intervention in Latin America?
"Globalization" is really just a modern buzzword for good
old-fashioned imperialism. It's simply the continued theft of the
world's raw materials and labor by a minority of wealthy, predominantly
European nation-states. In Blood Song, we follow the adventures of an
indigenous woman through her native landscape, a tropical landscape,
which is soon over-run by foreign interests, who eventually cut down
every tree in the forest. Since no words are used, we aren't quite
certain where in the world we are. Is this Vietnam or Indonesia? It
could well be somewhere in Latin America, with its ever-present death
squads terrorizing the peasant population. The question is: Who's arming
and training these paramilitary death squads? Throughout the last
century, the US government has supported some of the world's most brutal
dictatorships, in the name of "fighting communism at all costs." Since
the collapse of the Soviet Union, and more recently of the Twin Towers,
the mission has shifted to "fighting terrorism at all costs."
What role do you think the artist has in society, and particularly right now, in the midst of the war on terrorism and imminent war with Iraq?
The artist's role in society is a subtle one. Artists possess the
ability to perceive reality in ways that most people are oblivious.
Artists are analytical by nature. They see the world with a special kind
of x-ray vision, which enables them to construct aesthetic works, layer
by layer. I feel that art is much more than self-expression, but is an
actual language--a universal language with which one can communicate.
The simple act of self-expression as an end in itself, like jerking
off--a pleasurable, yet temporary relief of pressure--is ultimately
unsatisfying. Its too solitary, too self-absorbed. Great art
communicates to the masses, utilizing the vivid details of common
experience, and transforms them--condenses them--into works which enable
people to see through society's endless layers of bullshit: its lies,
obfuscations, official myths, propaganda. Art cuts to the quick. It
cuts to the chase. The truth can be funny as hell, and make you laugh
out loud; but it can also make you cry like a baby . . . it's beautiful.
The technique you used to create the images in Blood Song is similar to your other work--and wholly unique in its own right. How do you make your work?
All of the images in Blood Song were created on scratchboard,
a similar technique to woodcut or linocut. The ink is already on the
board, and you are actually removing it with a blade. It's a type of
engraving process, which enables the artist to cut clean, sharp, angular
marks directly, without having to print backwards as in most graphic
techniques--like etching, lithography, or woodcut. I first began working
in scratchboard years back, when I was creating editorial illustrations
and political cartoons for various newspapers. Scratchboard drawings
have a strong, graphic quality which always reproduces well on cheap
newsprint--even when reduced down to postage stamp size. Also, the
tactile and visceral sensation of drawing with a knife has always
appealed to me. In Blood Song, I then added soft layers of
watercolor on top of the hard, jagged marks. This painted layer gives
the book its ethereal, mist-infused atmosphere.
You've moved to the Bay Area after a lifetime in New York City. What similarities and differences have you seen between daily life and political issues going on in those two places?
Both New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area are the most
politically progressive regions in the US. I travel back and forth
frequently, always trying to keep one foot planted on either coast. Both
places have long traditions of social activism, labor struggles, and, of
course, artistic innovation. New York is on a vastly larger scale,
obviously--nothing can begin to compare to the non-stop, frenetic
quality of New York. Which is why I've finally set up my studio here in
Berkeley. It's got a slower pace and more oxygen. I like oxygen. Growing
up on Manhattan Island felt like growing up in a can of
sardines--claustrophobic, metallic, oily, too much salt! Presently, the
Bay Area is in the vanguard of the anti-war movement. Local elected
officials have boldly run on progressive, anti-militarist platforms, and
were just re-elected by a landslide. Over 100,000 marched in San
Francisco last month, chanting "No Blood for Oil!"
Your art has always been connected with on-the-streets activism. In fact, your book Street Posters & Ballads was intended to be used as sort of a toolkit for making stickers and posters for progressive event organizing. What made you decide to do that?
Street Posters & Ballads was an anthology of political graphics I'd originally created as poster art, which were plastered on walls throughout my neighborhood--the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I decided to publish the collection as a book after realizing that virtually all of the images transcended the local issues I had been illustrating: real estate speculation, AIDS, police brutality, jail solidarity and organized resistance. They were familiar scenarios in cities across the US.
The concept of the book was to share these hard-hitting graphics
with activists throughout the country, so they could be freely
reproduced, without any hassle or concern over copyright. My policy is
spelled out in the book's copyright page: "Progressive, non-profit,
activist groups may freely lift, reproduce and disseminate contents as
they see fit . . . Status quo opportunists who reproduce contents
without permission will get their asses sued off." With the advent of
the World Wide Web, a lot of my work is now on line, much of it in
high-resolution, print-quality form, for easy downloading by activists .
The site has been a great resource; I see my images used all over the
world as posters, fliers, and in underground publications.
I think part of why your work is easily appropriated and re-contextualized by activists is because it is able to be so evocative without using words.
Pictures are the earliest form of writing. As a species, we've been
at it for over 40,000 years! Images speak to us on a primal level. We
view and interpret them as children, long before society teaches us how
to read and write. They are our native tongue. As an image-maker, I've
set out to create epic tales, adventure stories, full-length modern
novels--written in the ancient language of pictures. My books can be
"read" by anyone, regardless of age or background. There's no language
barrier.
How would you describe the state of political public art today?
I've seen a dramatic shrinkage of public space in our cities in recent decades. In New York and San Francisco, which have long, vibrant traditions of public gatherings and street oratory, there has been a gradual, yet persistent, crackdown on political and cultural expression. Parks are closed at night and rigorously curfewed. People congregating in groups are ordered to "break it up" and "keep moving" by the police. More and more, cities are taking on the appearance of shopping malls and yuppie theme parks. The vibe is unmistakably: "If you don't got the bucks, Beat it!"
Socially-conscious artists continue, however, to make their voices heard, and street posters and stencils continue to be a viable means of communicating on lamp posts and walls from coast to coast . . . Of course, we need more, much more enlightened art, with thought-provoking content out there. Infinitely more! Right now, all I see are occasional sparks of consciousness, here and there.
I've long maintained that actually, we are surrounded by political art everywhere we look. Don't forget: advertising billboards, signs and commercials, which bombard us at every turn were all designed by artists who went to art school. But what is the political message of all this art? Consume . . . Be Cool . . . Aloof . . . Be Sexy . . . Self-Obsessed . . . Get Drunk! Creative people need to question how they may be prostituting their talents--and who their pimp is.