Art Activism In The Digital Age

 By Deanna Balestra for the Carl Kruse Blog

For the past 100 years, we’ve fully embraced art in political activism with painting, sculptures, live demonstrations, and more. In fact, being enraged seems to be a driving force in some  artwork, an opening of flood gates to release anger. Activist art is also meant to draw attention, share perspective, and even change minds when possible. 

 

Historic Examples Of Art Activism

 

Throughout history, there have been marginalized people given a voice through artistic expression. Art has also been an outlet for crying out against unjust governments and societal inequalities. 

 

Diego Rivera created murals protesting Mexican politics in the 1920's and 30's. His paintings were attacks on the ruling class, capitalism, and churches. Rivera wanted to protect worker’s rights and promote socialism. 



 Diego Rivera, Peasants

 

 

Yayoi Kusama did live protest performance art, often using nude subjects, to protest the Vietnam War. She also staged love-ins and launched artistic attacks at the stock market and Wallstreet for funding the war. 

 

Feminism has been fought with propaganda and live events from the Guerilla Girls and Pussy Riot. Feminist protest art from the gorilla-mask-wearing girls still sits in galleries and institutions today. 

Artistic Expression Of Outrage Online 

 

“In our social media driven society, the impact of activist art is more relevant than ever, able as it is to reach large international audiences with pressing issues of the day, such as climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, racism, and the abuse of power.” - Rosie Lesso, Carl Kruse.net 

 

Social media has its pros and cons in spreading activist art. On the one hand, it gives a world-wide audience to photographers, actors, and artists to create eye-opening and raw emotional pieces of activist art. On the other hand, people are quick to share it with a trendy hashtag but then go about their regular lives without taking any action. 

 

A lot of artwork and live demonstrations were staged and created all over the world for the “I can’t breath” movement sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police. That artwork and photography were then shared billions of times on social media. While the original event took place in the USA, it quickly became a worldwide protest. 

 

It will be up to this new generation of social media consumers to find ways to turn digital activist art into something more meaningful that elicits change. In the meantime, at least the world is watching and learning from the outpouring of rage over such things as US immigration policy, climate change, race relations, and LGBTQ+ rights all around us.

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Blog homepage is at carlkruseofficial.blogspot.com/
Contact:  carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Other blogs are at Carl Kruse Official, Carl Kruse Ancillary Blog and Carl Kruse Tumblr

 

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