A conversation with Jason Lazarus about his project Phase 1 (Intersections of Art and Politics, pt. 2)

Continuing with the series of occasional writings I recently began (go here for pt. 1) about the myriad intersections between art and politics, with this week marking the one-year anniversary of the initial Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that brought the U.S. movement in line with other large global protests gaining steam last year, I thought it appropriate to talk with Chicago artist Jason Lazarus about his series Phase 1.

As a small matter of housekeeping, let me first re-emphasize that I don't approach these writings with any assertion that an artist's intentions are strictly/inherently political or activist by nature, as I'm obviously in no position (nor find it entirely valuable in regards to enhancing our understanding/regard/dialogue with the artist's work) to speculate on their motivations or to pigeonhole the wide range of their overall output. Instead, what I am acutely interested in is exploring the ways in which art reflects and interacts with the political/sociopolitical sphere and how artists navigate thru those channels, and also in ultimately examining and helping to propel the discourses that an active artistic engagement with those ideas can encourage among a broader audience.

Lazarus' series Phase 1 derives its name from conversations between Adbusters collaborators Kalle Lasn and Micah White, who established camps, meetings, marches and signs as "Phase 1" of the OWS effort and its occupation of Zuccotti Park. Using online photo documentation of OWS and other Occupy demonstrations around the world, Lazarus has, both alone in the studio and collaboratively with the public, meticulously re-created protest signs to create a massive archive representing the spectrum of voices and locations the Occupy movement has affected. In the process, he also raises interesting questions not only about the protests themselves, but also about contemporary art production and the role of photography (especially digital photography in the Internet age).

studio installation, 2011
from the Phase 1 project
© Jason Lazarus

Lazarus began the project in late 2011 as a visiting artist at the University of South Florida in Tampa, prompting collaborations with students and community members and eventually orchestrating and staging an occupation and dialogue at USF using the re-created protest signs; he also later hosted a parallel schedule of group events this spring in Chicago as part of Version Fest 12.

Bill Ayers leading a discussion on art and politics as part of Phase 1, at Version Fest 12
(photo courtesy of Jason Lazarus)

I'd be remiss not to point out that Lazarus is often referred to as more of a "cultural producer", and I'll echo that term for its efforts in trying to accurately reflect the vast scope of his artistic practice, which utilizes photography, collected and appropriated imagery, sculpture, site-specific installations, archiving, text-based works, and other forms to examine our cultural, political, and historical landscape. Lazarus received his MFA in photography from Columbia College in 2003; since then, his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in a list so extensive that I won't even dream of typing up here for fear of my incurring carpal tunnel symptoms. Lazarus is represented in the U.S. by Andrew Rafacz Gallery, with whom he'll be installing his series Sarasota Photomat for exhibition this week at Expo Chicago. In addition, Lazarus is slated for an upcoming solo show titled A Constant State of Becoming, in February 2013 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. That exhibition will include his Phase 1 series as well as other recent and newer projects.

Occupy University of South Florida at Tampa public display and occupation
from the Phase 1 project
© Jason Lazarus

GR: I'm curious about the background and formation of your Phase 1 project, and the decision-making process that led you there: how did you arrive at working on this series and choosing the Occupy protest signage as your subject matter? Was there something specific about the topic that drew you to it? Something specific about the Occupy movement or the protest signs?

Jason Lazarus: The project I think began as wanting to engage in the flood of digital imagery that accompanies large cultural phenomena. How do you slow it down? Is that documentation enough when it's digital? Online? How will the future encounter this history? Is there meaning to be gained by a digital to analog shift?
Also, if Occupy is an amalgam and somewhat undefinable, the pleas that shape the movement can be found in the signs, in all their disparate aesthetics, messaging, paradigms, and strategies.

The notion of "how will the future encounter this history," I think speaks to the power of what you're doing now in archiving these protest signs. Do you see them living on as political and historical relics? How does their efficacy change over time?

I'm always thinking about a long arc of time and have faith in time passing as a multiplier in the meanings/relevance/profundity that may or may not be apparent in a project that some might consider almost too topical, a fad, trendy, etc… I am also recently an uncle for the first time which tilts the axis of making for me… I think about him now when I'm making things and thinking about time…

Phase 1 installation at Version Fest 12
(photo courtesy of Jason Lazarus)

In another one of your archive-related projects, Too Hard to Keep, there seems to be a sense of commemoration or memorial -- is there something similar going on in Phase 1? Or maybe Phase 1 takes on other elements: education, analysis, political engagement, call to action?

Certainly the threads all lead back to me. I'm excited about these two projects existing simultaneously because they are very different in terms of the continuum of private/public and travel that continuum in different directions at times (after all we are all emotional and political entities). Too Hard to Keep presents private photos in a public context, and Phase 1 slows/quiets/revisits the publicness of OWS into a more contemplative space.
Last, MCA Chicago will host the project in early 2013 and in that exhibition, public visitors will be able to take some of the signs off the wall and carry them around the museum with them as they view the other exhibitions! This creates a new set of important possibilities for participating/viewing/politicizing/collaborating/re-history making…

How do you see the Phase 1 project in relation to your larger artistic practice? Are you drawing from any particular aspects of your lexicon in this new endeavor? Some overlaps that jump out to me immediately are the focus on individual narratives within a larger cultural/political/historical context, as well as your continued exploration of archiving.

Yes it has everything to do with the last number of years: an engagement with politics, the private/public weave of narratives, curating, archiving, collaboration, handwriting, etc. It's a natural growth of everything before. There's more to come as well!

Another recurrent idea that seems readily apparent in Phase 1 is the interplay of text vs. image. I'm curious about the dynamics of protest signs, the collaboration between how the sign's message is created and signified thru chosen text AND any visual aesthetics or techniques that aid in enhancing that text and delivering the message. And even the many signs with words but no images, where the text selection by itself becomes a strong communicator without the need for any greater visual cues -- which strikes me as somewhat similar to your Orion Over Baghdad series, yet these protest signs take it to a higher level because we can analyze the handwritten words alone for their differences in font, handwriting style, materials used, etc. How do you see the text vs. image relationship playing out in the protest signs in Phase 1?

All of the variations in the weight or presence of text over image (or vice versa) reveal that when we're presented with little information (visually or textually) we have a collective consciousness of history that is idiosyncratic AND shared, a rolodex of content we bring to negative space that is very potent. As an artist I appreciate those gaps and understand their power.

tracing a protest sign, during Phase 1 at Version Fest 12
(photo courtesy of Jason Lazarus)

Looking at the source material for the signs you've chosen to re-create, do you see an inherent artfulness in what they've made? As if the protestors are enacting a personal creative impulse carried out and manifest thru the signs. Do you get any sense of how the protestors feel about the role of art in political resistance? As you've worked on Phase 1, have you had any conversations with Occupy protestors about this idea, or about how they interact with art?

I've been to Occupy in Tampa, NYC, and Chicago and have never been asked about this… I go as an occupier who is an artist who is an American. That said, I think there is a fragile economy of protest that requires signs to have a speedy making or embellished making. What's important at a given time? Hitting the streets NOW? Or prioritizing a specific message and making it a focal point among many? To me the speedy ones have as much artfulness as the embellished, because the speed is the political act that I think is artful.

I understand you have an undergrad degree in marketing from DePaul. Many of your projects (and especially Phase 1) show that you're well aware of the power of language. Surely there are some overlaps in the pointed uses (dare I say propaganda?) of words & images among the Occupy signs (or protests in general) AND how commercial/profit-motivated entities market their products and interests -- despite the obvious individual-versus-corporation power struggle implied therein. As such, it seems to me that while your marketing background might inform your work in Phase 1 (in the understanding and command of language), concurrently there's also this rejection or subversion (almost a detournement, perhaps) of those conventions. Can you speak to this?

When I graduated from DePaul I started working in the non-profit marketing sector for a pretty great theatre company. Even with their amazing cultural contribution, I still felt two things: I wanted to author/develop my own ideas instead of trumpeting others, and second, the world has too many salesmen. So I changed everything.
Now I'm implicated in another market, the art world, that I'm trying to navigate ears-perked-up. I think at this point I can honestly say I fetishize handmade signs because they represent the individual, the unsponsored, the underrepresented… they are the antithesis of ubiquitous, group-created, overly-underly researched, over-produced marketing messages.

from the Phase 1 project
© Jason Lazarus

I recently came across an interview with Robert Adams where he was asked about the role of an artist in society, to which he replied:

"First we have an obligation to be the citizens we want everyone to be - informed, engaged, reasonable, and compassionate. Then as artists we are called historically to a double mission, to instruct and delight, to tell the truth but also to find in it a basis for affirmation."
(--Robert Adams, in an interview at the Hasselblad Foundation)

Obviously, discerning the artist's role is tricky territory (and even Adams had admitted to his own difficulties in answering the question), but I wonder if there's anything in Adams' response that resonates with you either in a general sense or something specific about your own artistic practice?

Instruct, delight, and truth are all words that I am wary of, to be honest… let me try something else: Artists have the freedom to employ the stomach, heart, and brain equally in their making, and to employ GRACE, which I will not explain…
To me, the artist's role is to claw into and maintain this role with all the vigor and integrity they can over the longest period of time they can. The output of a lifetime of an artist's work is tantamount to witnessing an ambitious philosophical text/experiment and it is an answer/non-answer to the question of 'how do we exist?'