{"id":300090,"date":"2025-06-18T04:28:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T04:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/art\/the-war-of-art-charts-the-catalyzing-history-of-artists-protests-in-the-u-s-colossal\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T04:28:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T04:28:40","slug":"the-war-of-art-charts-the-catalyzing-history-of-artists-protests-in-the-u-s-colossal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=300090","title":{"rendered":"‘The War of Art’ Charts the Catalyzing History of Artists’ Protests in the U.S. \u2014 Colossal"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In May of 1982, Budapest-born artist Agnes Denes congregated with a small group of volunteers at Lower Manhattan\u2019s Battery Park Landfill. They planted wheat berries onto the plot of land, which, once grown, created a lush field of wispy stalks juxtaposed against the city\u2019s skyline. Visually striking, the ecological artwork was in part a protest against exploitation, greed, and the destruction of people and the environment. The paltry $158 spent on seeds stood in stark contrast to the $4.5 billion evaluation of the land itself.<\/p>\n

Denes\u2019 \u201cWheatfield\u2014a Confrontation\u201d is one of ten case studies presented in Lauren O\u2019Neill-Butler<\/a>\u2019s timely new book. Released on the heels of this weekend\u2019s mass mobilization<\/a> against the Trump administration, The War of Art: A History of Artists\u2019 Protest in America<\/em> comes at a moment when many of us are considering what tools we have to create the world we want to live in. Artists have long grappled with this question, O\u2019Neill Butler reminds us, as many have even fused their aesthetic inclinations with their desires for justice.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLie-in\u201d protest of the Vietnam War in Central Park (November 14, 1969). Photo by J. Spencer Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The War of Art<\/em> is in the lineage of books like Nicolas Lampert\u2019s A People\u2019s Art History of the United States<\/a><\/em>, which chronicles grassroots approaches to art and social change across 250 years. For her text, O\u2019Neill-Butler shortens the timeline and begins with the 1960s. Early projects include Benny Andrews\u2019 co-founding of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, or BECC, and the creation of a prison arts program at the Manhattan House of Detention following the Attica riot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill-Butler is wary of dictating exactly what activist art is, instead leaving the genre open-ended. The defining characteristics she does offer are that these types of projects are \u201calways a means to an end\u201d and tend to collapse the already frail boundary between politics and art. Many of her case studies utilize art to gain attention from the media and, therefore, the public, a combination that often proves more efficacious than either protest or artistic presentation alone.<\/p>\n

For example, David Wojnarowicz\u2019s work to end the AIDS pandemic with ACT UP and Nan Goldin\u2019s Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P.A.I.N.) were both movements that utilized spectacular tactics like the \u201cdie-in,\u201d a public performance that originated during the Vietnam War. These actions involve protestors lying on the ground or floor, and in the case of Goldin\u2019s work, took place in institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in objection to the Sackler family\u2019s wing. <\/p>\n

Wojnarowicz is also famous for his now-iconic jean jacket saying, \u201cIf I die of AIDS\u2014forget burial\u2014just drop my body on the steps of the F.D.A.,\u201d an image of which has widely circulated and come to symbolize the movement. These projects aren\u2019t simply art created with activist concerns but rather inextricable from the positions they argue for. <\/p>\n

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Still from Chris McKim\u2019s documentary \u2018Wojnarowicz\u2019 (2020)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of course, it\u2019s important to acknowledge that the problems these artists rail against\u2014a lack of affordable housing, public health crises, discrimination in the art world, to name a few\u2014are ongoing, and like most socially engaged projects, the examples the book includes are not without criticism. <\/p>\n

In 1993, seven African-American artists established Project Row Houses in Houston\u2019s historic Third Ward by renovating a block of derelict shotgun houses and creating a welcoming gathering space in an underinvested neighborhood. Although Project Row Houses did revitalize the area through various artist-driven efforts like the Drive-By <\/em>exhibition shown below, today, gentrification and the effects of the climate crisis continue to displace the residents whom organizers sought to serve. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill-Butler doesn\u2019t suggest that artists should be tasked with identifying and implementing solutions to the world\u2019s ills and notes that Houston\u2019s Third Ward would likely have gentrified even without artist intervention and subsequent attention. She does, however, offer a nuanced consideration of each project\u2019s successes and struggles and acknowledges the limits of endeavors like those she outlines. Art provides what the book refers to as \u201ca crack in the wall,\u201d a rupture in the flimsy veneer of power and oppression that, once exposed, threatens their foundational structures.<\/p>\n

The War of Art<\/em> is out today from Verso. Find your copy in the Colossal Shop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Benny Andrews giving a drawing demonstration to students at Alabama State University in Montgomery (October 10, 1975). Image courtesy of the Andrews-Humphrey Family Foundation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Installing \u201cHome Free\u201d by Israel McCloud for the \u2018Drive-By\u2019 exhibition at Project Row Houses (1994). Image courtesy of Project Row Houses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Aerial view of Project Row Houses (2015). Photo by Peter Molick, courtesy of Project Row Houses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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