Michael Rossman: All Of Us Or None

[See URL for embedded links.]

Michael Rossman: All Of Us Or None

http://www.art-for-a-change.com/blog/2008/05/michael-rossman-all-of-us-or-none.html

by Mark Vallen
May 19, 2008

It is not likely that many people personally knew, or even heard of,
Michael Rossman - yet for those even remotely interested in the
alternative culture and politics that thrived in Berkeley, California
in the late 1960s, Michael's spirit looms large. I consider myself
fortunate to have known him - however briefly - and to be able to say
that he was a friend. He passed away at his home in Berkeley on May
12, 2008, at the age of 68, after a short but heroic battle with a
rare form of acute leukemia.

I first became aware of Michael while visiting the University of
California Berkeley in the summer of 1984. While on campus I
discovered Know Your Enemy, a small exhibit of Anti-Vietnam War
Movement posters then showing at the university's Heller Gallery. The
poster display was curated by the All Of Us Or None (AOUON) archive.
Later I asked some of my acquaintances in the Berkeley area if they
had heard of AOUON, and I was promptly put in contact with Michael -
who had founded the archives in 1977.

Michael invited me to his home where he gave me access to his
remarkable poster collection. We became fast friends, talking until
the wee hours of the morning about all aspects of poster making and
collecting. He was an animated, passionate, enthusiastic, poet
philosopher who could seemingly discuss anything under the sun with
aplomb. Unsurprisingly he talked about the social history of posters
with great expertise, but I was astonished at how naturally he
discussed everything from science and literature to political theory.
As a matter of fact, he taught science to school children during the
last thirty years of his life. I remember our first get together
ending with Michael pontificating on the joys of identifying and
collecting wild edible mushrooms - complete with his detailed
descriptions of various species of fungi.

By the time of Michael's death, his All Of Us Or None (AOUON) archive
had expanded to some 25,000 domestically produced political posters
and flyers from the post World War II period. Aside from L.A.'s
Center for the Study of Political Art (CSPG), and Lincoln Cushing's
Docs Populi archives, only the Hoover Institution maintains as large
a holding of domestic posters from earlier eras (approximately
8,700), and of these, few are from the period Michael focused on in
his collection). The core of the AOUON archive focused on the poster
renaissance centered in the San Francisco Bay area from 1965 to the
present. But the archive's holdings are also national and
international in scope, with one-quarter of its posters coming from
outside of California and another 2,000 having been produced
internationally. The breathtaking collection well represents all
branches of America's modern dissident cultural and political movements.

Over the years Michael and I kept in touch through casual
correspondence and occasional pop in visits. In the late 80s he came
to see me at my Los Angeles studio, where I donated a number of my
early prints to his archive. It was during that visit that I learned
of Michael's prominent role in Berkeley's Free Speech Movement of
1964-1965, as he relayed that history to me in his typically dynamic
and energetic manner. When he was finished recounting the tale of
America's burgeoning student movement - I felt as though I had been there.

It was only a few years after Michael's visit that director Mark
Kitchell's documentary film Berkeley In The Sixties was released. In
my opinion it is the finest movie ever made about the protest
movement of the 60s, and luckily for us all, Michael appeared in it
as one of 15 veteran Berkeley activists whose interviews provided the
narrative backdrop to the movie's historic footage. Michael's
insights and observations helped to make Berkeley In The Sixties the
superlative filmic treatment of the period that it is. In 1999
Michael also played a central role in establishing the online Free
Speech Movement archive, another invaluable source for historians and
activists.

Until just recently I corresponded with Michael by e-mail, exchanging
dispatches on the state of contemporary art and its possibilities -
but the e-mails stopped coming from him a while back. I knew that
because of his failing health he had restricted his immediate
contacts to family and the very closest of friends. Still, he managed
to find the strength to stay in touch with his extended family
through the use of his personal web log, where he kept his associates
across the globe abreast of his deteriorating condition. He did so
with surprising gusto and dignity, managing to turn his end into a
learning process for all. What struck me most about Michael's final
days was the calmness with which he faced his certain onrushing death
- he confronted it like a lion. I would add that type of courage to
all the remarkable traits that were a part of this dear man, his
intellectual curiosity, open mindedness, compassion, gentleness, and
belief in humanity.

Without crudely idolizing Michael - goodness knows how I detest hero
worship - I attest to his having been an exemplar amongst the
veterans of the 60s "movement". He was in fact the very embodiment of
egalitarian counter-cultural ideals and values. Now that he is no
longer around, and I need not worry about embarrassing him, I can say
in all honesty that our greatest tribute to Michael Rossman would be
to live like he did.

.