Local artist recruits to ‘Recall Rahm’

Chicago+artist+David+Beltran+created+the+image+of+Mayor+Rahm+Emanuel+%28right%29+as+one+of+the+visuals+for+the+Recall+Rahm+Penpal+Club.

Courtesy: David Beltran

Chicago artist David Beltran created the image of Mayor Rahm Emanuel (right) as one of the visuals for the “Recall Rahm Penpal Club.”

By Arts & Culture Reporter

Protesters calling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s impeachment can now send their comments and complaints directly to the mayor’s office—on artsy postcards with messages of their choice.

Chicago artist David Beltran, also known as Bae Cutler, said he launched his project, “Recall Rahm Penpal Club,” Jan. 15 to encourage people to respond to current events, including the recent release of police dashcam videos that showed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. Van Dyke was charged with first degree murder,         which placed Emanuel under national scrutiny. 

Beltran said the controversy inspired him to create the club.

The cards emulate Richard Nixon’s 1974 impeachment campaign with slogans such as “Impeach Rahm 2016” and suggested donations range from $2 to $2.50.  

Beltran decorates the cards with short messages of the buyers’ choosing and sends them directly to Emanuel’s office. He said he has created more than 1,000 cards and more than 200 have been sold as of press time.

“It’s a vote,” Beltran said. “It might not be a real vote that’s going to put him out, but it will at least let him and other people know. It’s passing through many hands before it gets to him, so the message is getting seen, felt and read before it even gets to him.”

Beltran said the idea for the project originally came from a Dec. 9 protest in which people were demanding the recall of Emanuel and Anita Alvarez, State’s Attorney for Cook County, who has also been criticized for poor oversight of local law enforcement. 

Beltran began making the designs and images for a fake Facebook event created by his friend Rachel Brown that turned into the protest. But he decided he wanted it to be something bigger.

“You have to have that mindset if you’re going to create a project, it can’t just be retweeting memes, or ‘I like this’ and put it on Facebook,” Beltran said. “That doesn’t change how the world will affect us in an immediate moment.”

Josh Patterson, a freelance video editor who has worked with Beltran on previous projects, said he could not attend any protests demanding Emanuel’s resignation, but buying a postcard gets him involved. 

He also said this political art project is different from others because it uses “irreverent humor,” which is a way to engage people without being so “heavy-handed.”

“The fact that it’s using the means of the postal service which is a government service—you’re using the government to protest the government,” Patterson said. “In a way, we’re forcing them to deliver a protest instead of going to do it ourselves.”

Armani Barron, an art director at Northwestern University and postcard customer, said Beltran “eloquently” pinpoints social issues in a satirical way. 

According to Barron, this project will attract attention because of it is not digital or conveyed through social media.

“You can say whatever you want in this card,” Barron said. “It allows people to be more open about their feelings than if they were put physically in front of [Rahm]. When you read something in digital format, you don’t take it as seriously as something handwritten that’s given to you. There’s actual emotion tied to it, it’s not like someone is trolling on the Internet.”