The War of Art: A History of Artists’ Protest in America

Art historian O’Neill-Butler (Let’s Have a Talk) explores the interplay of activism and art in these thought-provoking case studies. Aiming to break through the “cultural amnesia” that prevents contemporary artist-activists from building on their forerunners’ successes, she considers such groundbreaking artworks as the wheatfield conceptual artist Agnes Denes planted in Lower Manhattan in 1982, as a critique of globalized agriculture, and Project Row Houses, a form of “social practice art” spearheaded by an artist collective in the 1990s to restore abandoned properties in Houston’s Third Ward. Other artists interrogated the sometimes-cozy relationship between industry and art. For example, beginning in the late 2010s, Nan Goldin’s Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P.A.I.N.) organized “die-ins” in the Louvre and other museums to protest their ties to the Sackler family (whose pharmaceutical company developed Oxycontin), spurring the removal of the family’s name from some museums’ exhibits. O’Neill-Butler succeeds in cataloging the broad array of strategies artists have used to agitate for change, and she offers measured critiques of their works, which often reflected positions of privilege. Art historians will find much to chew on here. (June)