Christopher Cardinale ~ Clamor Interview

Clamor Magazine January / February 2004 - Issue 24
Christofurious: The Art of Christopher Cardinale
Interview By Sarah Groff-Palermo

Christopher Cardinale is a New York City-based muralist and artist. With World War 3 Arts in Action, he helps create banners and graphics for many activist organizations, including United for Peace and Justice and No Blood For Oil NYC. Recently, WW3 Arts in Action worked to draw attention to the Bloomberg administration closing many New York City firehouses. He has also created murals with Make the Road by Walking, a Brooklyn community-based organization.

What did you get into first, art or activism?

Art came first. My mom began giving me drawing lessons before I was teenager.I see my politicization as having its first traces in the punk movement. But long before I was a skate punk, I stared at prints by Kathe Kollwitz, a German printmaker from the early twentieth century, that hung in the living room of my parents’ home. I was drawn to printmaking while in art school because of my love for drawing the figure but also because historically it was a less elitist way of producing art. The major politicization of my work began when I spent over a year in Mexico City doing prints, banners and aerosol murals as I simultaneously saturated my eyes with hundreds of murals by the great Mexican muralists and
participated in collectives organized by the anarcho-punks of Mexico City.

How does your style relate to your topics?

My style has its roots in a German Expressionist and Mexican woodcuts, Mexican muralism, American aerosol art and comics. All of these art forms were and are concerned with communicating a message, narrative or emotion to the viewer in a straightforward and often not so subtle way. The subjects of my banners, murals and graphics are urgent, raw and emotional; therefore the jagged, hand-carved line of the woodcut combined with the size and dynamism of monumental figures most effectively expresses messages concerned with social justice. I love the challenge of working without text. It is more difficult to communicate a concept by using images alone. I also try to do without tired symbols like the peace symbol unless they are switched up in a fresh way.

How do your banner and construction workshops work?

The banner construction workshops that Seth Tobocman and I gave last summer were part of a larger event called Summer Camp, organized by Chicago-based Creative Resistance. I tried to structure those workshops to give some of the technical knowledge that I have learned. Normally when WW3 Arts in Action gets together to make banners and placards for an action it is less structured. Artists of all skill levels and ages show up and we work together around a common theme such as "Arms manufacturers need war like umbrella makers need rain." [Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer] Some artists come with fully developed concepts in the form of sketches and others are content to fill in a background color on someone else’s piece.

When you are facilitating art workshops, what kind of balance do you look for between helping people feel empowered to make their own art and looking to keep good aesthetic standards?

Getting a mural or a piece of collaborative work to be well crafted, unified in style and to clearly express its message is just as important, especially if people are going to have to live with it in their neighborhood and see it day after day. This really comes into play with the community murals done in collaboration with youth. I direct them to conceptualize the mural and come up with a theme that speaks of issues that relate to their situation, to research the themes thoroughly, then to do the visual research and come up with the imagery. We then compile their imagery into a working design, which, once they OK, gets transferred to the wall. We fill in the local colors. I explain things such as shading, light source and line quality as we work on the piece and then towards the end I personally refine unresolved areas of the mural, to unify it stylistically and to bring it to high degree of finish.

What role do you think art plays in activism?

I was just looking at some political illustrations published by the Wobblies [International Workers of the World] from 1905 to 1908 and found that their impact was strong, inspiring and relevant to this day. These illustrations published in pamphlets and periodicals served to educate, inspire action, clarify direction and create a vision of a society not yet realized. Art can be far less intimidating and dogmatic than a slogan being chanted or a lengthy manifesto handed out in pamphlet form, not to mention less boring and more accessible.

Interview #1:

New York Press July 16, 2003 - Volume 16, Issue 29
Muralista: Q&A with Christopher Cardinale
By Katharine Crane & Alexander Zaitchik

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