Intentionally or not, Political Art Month breeds rabbits and maize

It’s been two years since Contemporary Art Month decamped from its traditional summer home for the tourist-friendly month of March, but Gene Elder claims he doesn’t give a damn. “It was pretty bleak back in 1985 when everything started, and CAM was just a goal,” he said last week at his home on River Road. “Now there’s contemporary art all year round, so let them have it for marketing.” The local arts- and gay-rights activist has been around CAM since the early days when he served as the property manager where it all started — the Blue Star Arts Complex. Elder now runs the Happy Foundation GayBLT History Archives housed at the Bonham Exchange, set up as a tribute to his best friend, Arthur P. “Happy” Veltman, the downtown visionary and developer who launched the Blue Star, the Bonham, and many riverfront properties before succumbing to HIV/AIDS in 1988. Seeing a vacuum where CAM lived for over 20 years, Elder last year declared July to be Political Art Month and is campaigning for the cause again this year.

But Elder is more gadfly than statesman. In a town with a decided bent towards using art for social commentary, you might think this would be a hit. But where’s the party? The campaign has transpired largely through a barrage of emails, and there are but few listings on the PAM online calendar. “It’s a squatter’s idea,” Elder says. “There wasn’t much organization when PAM started, either. People just did what they did. Now there’s nothing else going on in July, so that’s my excuse. We don’t have a budget, but let’s see what happens.

“If I wanted to do a sand painting on the moon,” Elder says by explanation, “well, I couldn’t do it myself. I don’t have a rocket. But I could give you a drawing and instructions to make the painting, like what sand to use. If you had a rocket, then you’d be all set.”

This week a special PAM edition of Voices of Art Magazine will roll out with reviews of politically infused art shows in SA and around Texas, interviews with artists by Elder, and a guide to doing documentary filmmaking on the border (smile when you’re arrested and handcuffed — it’s just part of the game). Paid for largely out-of-pocket by Elder, Voices is, if you will, a blueprint for a possible PAM.

Assembled by arts educators David Freeman and Nancy Moyer, the effort briefly revives the old SA arts magazine, which published a PAM special last year as well. “As an artist I feel like I have a responsibility to act in a way that has a certain moral integrity to it,” Freeman said. “And so we’re really embracing the idea of Political Art Month not as a propagandistic kind of a thing. Propaganda bombards you with just one point of view and it is trying to change your mind.”

The one-off includes a meditation on what Tea Party art would look like (if they were inclined to make it) and has attracted writing by San Antonio Museum of Art Contemporary Art Curator David S. Rubin and artwork by Blue Star Contemporary Art Center Director Bill FitzGibbons and his son Sean. If this is just a “how-to” pamphlet, it’s a fat one with a pedigree. It will be available soon at Blue Star Contemporary Art, the Bonham Exchange, and other spots in art land.

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