Cool Kids and Civics! Lena Dunham, Mia Wasikowska, and Terry Richardson Go Downtown for Democracy



1 / 7 Chevron Chevron Mia Wasikowska.

Artists and their acolytes gathered atop the Standard Hotel yesterday evening to celebrate, naturally, progressively inclined participatory democracy. (As dejected onlookers quickly discovered, the door at the Standard was, as always, not so democratic.) The raison du fête: the publication of The Pocket Guide to Politics, a compact, gorgeously designed little book that illustrates, through clever artwork by Aurel Schmidt, Terry Richardson, Casey Neistat, Dan Colen, and Andrew Kuo, among others, abstract things the purview of governmental agencies, the collateral damages of the war in Iraq, the legislative process, etc. Think Schoolhouse Rock! with a dash of America: The Book, as published by Phaidon.

“Many of us have been trying to get our friends interested in politics for years, to no avail,” said Audrey Gelman, a Downtown for Democracy board member and Girls actress. “So we figured the beginning was the logical place to start. Out of that came the idea to create a resource that laid out the ABC’s of American government through photos, paintings, pie charts, and prose.”

At the Standard, Pocket Guide contributors like Richardson and Schmidt mingled with downtownish supporters of democracy like Lena Dunham, Mia Wasikowska, Mos Def, Cynthia Rowley, Aaron Bondaroff, Cory Kennedy, Rachel Chandler, Nate Lowman, Theophilus London, Jesse Peretz, Hunter Johansson, and Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer.

The Pocket Guide is the co-creation of the OHWOW gallery and the advocacy organization Downtown for Democracy. Founded in 2003, D4D enlisted the likes of Marc Jacobs, Cynthia Rowley, Susan Sontag, Opening Ceremony, and Jonathan Safran Foer to harness their creativity and connections to help elect John Kerry. This year, though, there’s a hip, fashion-friendly candidate that doesn’t at all clash with the hip, fashion-friendly message. We’re talking, naturally, about Mitt Romney.

“In the downtown community we make things happen in culture, business and art, but it’s important to get together to respect the importance of our voice in politics,” said OHWOW co-founder Aaron Bondaroff. “The Pocket Guide to Politics is a perfect resource for creatives who want to get more involved in these decisions.”

Buy a book!