With every social movement, an art movement has not been far behind. Suprematism coincided with the years preceding the Bolshevik Revolution; Dada arose from the chaos of the Great Depression and World War I. While these social events have impacted art, the art typically remains representative.
Activist art, a recent trend, is changing that. Society has tended to conceptualize art as a release, but these days, more artists are using their work to capitalize on social issues rather than simply represent their emotional effect.
The Museum of Modern Art has jumped at the opportunity to engage with activist art through its Artists Experiment initiative, which brings artists and museum associates together to create interactive public works.
The trend serves as a means to an end for social justice and political movement. Tania Bruguera’s “Immigrant Movement International” is a long-term art cooperation that works toward fostering "alternative economies" centered around creative means, not capital gain, according to Bruguera's website. The movement is a think tank for American immigrants, and sample works include photography workshops, youth music projects, courses on media movements and an assortment of art classes.
“Immigrant Movement International” is a work of “arte útil,” or “useful art,” a form with less of an aesthetic focus than other activist art styles. Its beauty lies in the progress toward justice and social equality.
It’s no surprise, then, that activist art complicates the conventional assessment process. Its lack of traditional technique and form makes it difficult for art historians and art critics alike to criticize the pieces, and assessing them is no longer about simply analyzing the hand of the artist and the level of their technique.
One of the first eminent accounts of activist art was “Womanhouse.” Exhibited in 1972 in Los Angeles, the piece served as an iconic immortalization of the early feminist movement.
The project took form as a house that served as a gallery for works local women from the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts created under the guidance of well-known artist Judy Chicago. The most notable room in the transformed house-made-gallery was the kitchen, which featured patterns of eggs tiled upon the ceiling and upper walls. The tiled eggs bled into images of women’s breasts as they reached the lower walls and finally the floor. For the exhibition’s opening day, only women could enter the gallery. Through the exhibit, Chicago brought forth an unfiltered dialogue regarding women’s rights.
Over the years, the activist art phenomenon has transformed art into an entity that gives its viewers more questions than answers, uncertainty over assuredness. The world of fine art no longer contains a set repertoire of mediums. Detroit’s Museum of Contemporary Art is home to the late Mike Kelley’s “Mobile Homestead,” a precise replica of Kelley’s childhood residence in the Detroit suburb of Westland. The home features a removable mobile façade that travels the country, serving as a public art gallery and service provider to communities near and far.
Activist art recently came to Dartmouth with the Hood Museum’s installation of “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties,” which opened in late August. It addresses the aesthetic techniques used by various artists to explore racial injustice and proves a perfect example of the genre’s journey to push its viewers to interact with the art, rather than simply receive it.
Activist art is a revolution, a new genre for a new generation. It is the 21st century. The word “taboo” no longer chains down any topic of social movement. With a generation of liberated artists ahead of us, there is no reason for social and political injustice to remain in the shadows.
