A People's Art History of the United States: 250 Years of Activist Art and Artists Working in Social Justice Movements

by Nicolas Lampert

Overview

Inspired by the pathbreaking work of Howard Zinn, A People's Art History of the United States is propelled by a democratic vision of art, showing that art doesn't just belong within the confines of museums and archives. In fact, art is created every day in the street and all around us, and everyone deserves to be a part of it.

Called “important” by renowned art critic Lucy Lippard, A People's Art History of the United States introduces us to key works of American radical art alongside dramatic retellings of the histories that inspired them. Richly illustrated with more than two hundred black-and-white images, this book by acclaimed artist and author Nicolas Lampert is the go-to resource for everyone who wants to know what activist art can and does do for our society.

Spanning the abolitionist movement, early labor movements, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, and up to the present antiglobalization movement and beyond, A People's Art History of the United States is a wonderful read as well as a brilliant toolkit for today's artists and activists to adapt past tactics to the present, utilizing art and media as a form of civil disobedience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620971338
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	10/06/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Nicolas Lampert is a Milwaukee-based interdisciplinary artist and author whose work focuses on themes of social justice and ecology. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum, among others. Collectively, he works with the Justseeds Artists' Cooperative. Lampert is a full-time faculty member (academic staff appointment) at the Universityof Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Table of Contents

Series Preface vii

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Parallel Paths on the Same River 1

2 Visualizing a Partial Revolution 11

3 Liberation Graphics 22

4 Abolitionism as Autonomy, Activism, and Entertainment 33

5 The Battleground over Public Memory 39

6 Photographing the Past During the Present 48

7 Jacob A. Riis's Image Problem 60

8 Haymarket: An Embattled History of Static Monuments and Public Interventions 70

9 Blurring the Boundaries Between Art and Life 86

10 The Masses on Trial 99

11 Banners Designed to Break a President 110

12 The Lynching Crisis 121

13 Become the Media, Circa 1930 135

14 Government-Funded Art: The Boom and Bust Years for Public Art 146

15 Artists Organize 156

16 Artists Against War and Fascism 167

17 Resistance or Loyalty: The Visual Politics of Miné Okubo 176

18 Come Let Us Build a New World Together 188

19 Party Artist: Emory Douglas and the Black Panther Party 199

20 Protesting the Museum Industrial Complex 211

21 "The Living, Breathing Embodiment of a Culture Transformed" 224

22 Public Rituals, Media Performances, and Citywide Interventions 235

23 No Apologies: Asco, Performance Art, and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement 242

24 Art Is Not Enough 252

25 Antinuclear Street Art 263

26 Living Water: Sustainability Through Collaboration 269

27 Art Defends Art 278

28 Bringing the War Home 286

29 Impersonating Utopia and Dystopia 296

Notes 305

Index 347

Editorial Reviews

Praise for A People's Art History of the United States:

"This is an important first volley in what I hope is an ongoing fusillade of people's art histories. There are many more stories to tell, here and abroad. Those relayed by Nicolas Lampert offer models for an art that actively engages in and helps change the course of history."
—Lucy R. Lippard, author of Get the Message? A Decade of Art for Social Change

"Readable and instructive."
—Publishers Weekly

"A much welcome, fresh view of American political art."
—Paul Buhle, editor of A People's History of American Empire

"This book is an excellent jumping-off point for anyone unfamiliar with the powerful social justice roots of American culture, offering wonderful examples of historical points along the timeline of agitational American art. Lampert's credentials as an activist artist give him an insider's view of this important yet marginalized subject. It's an antidote to the conventional 'Art' model where form dominates content and artistic creativity is reduced to marketable commodities."
—Lincoln Cushing, author of All of Us or None: Social Justice Posters of the San Francisco Bay Area

"By introducing the significant role that artists have played throughout the history of the United States, Nicolas Lampert offers readers the delight of returning to a familiar narrative and discovering a fascinating reinterpretation. This well-wrought interdisciplinary text demonstrates that artists do not merely respond to and record the events transpiring in their lifetimes; they also shape these events by applying the tools of their profession to accomplish clearly articulated political agendas."
—Linda Weintraub, author of Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society

"Inspired by the revisionist social histories of Howard Zinn, Nicolas Lampert's A People's Art History of the United States is an inspiration in itself. Looking beyond an art world framed by museums and markets, Lampert surveys American activist cultures from the colonial era to the present. His passion for social change and his optimism about creative and constructive resistance come on strong in this well-written and wonderfully illustrated book. Highly recommended."
—Erika Doss, professor of American studies, University of Notre Dame

"Historical amnesia is rampant in U.S. politics today, no less so in the visual arts, where the current wave of social practice art often suffers from a lack of awareness of what came before. This is an original piece of research, pointing us toward a vast territory of reconnection."
—Suzanne Lacy, artist/writer, Otis College of Art and Design

"As much as it is easy to say that there are many histories of art that aren't those of the commercial system, the backing up of that statement with counter-histories is no small task. Here we have a tremendous contribution to a history of art that demonstrates how critical culture is to the production of people's movements."
—Nato Thompson, chief curator, Creative Time

"Written in accessible prose, Lampert's wonderful book is suitable for the university classroom or the union hall, the anarchist bookstore or bedtime reading for teenagers. When teaching on art and social justice at the university level, A People's Art History of the United States has become the go-to book on the subject."
—Dylan Miner, associate professor, Michigan State University, and author of Creating Aztlán: Chicano Art, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Lowriding Across Turtle Island

"In an image-based culture such as late-stage American capitalism, political art is frequently deployed as a stand in for political engagement itself, with little explanation of the social context that drove the work into being. Nicolas Lampert gives us the stories behind the potent images that have changed the way we think about ourselves, which is the point in studying them in the first place."
—Avram Finkelstein, ACT UP NYC

From the Publisher

10/21/2013
This latest addition to the New Press’s People’s History series, with a preface by Howard Zinn (A People’s History of the United States), is both readable and instructive. Rather than writing a comprehensive history of social-justice-movement art, Lampert, an activist artist himself, focuses on “examples that were complicated, where the decisions made by artists were controversial and confounding,” his premise being that “analyzing histories that are deeply complicated helps us learn.” His examples range from an examination of the changing uses of wampum belts between Native Americans and Europeans to the contemporary Yes Men’s audacious hoaxes that expose corporate and capitalist culture. Encouraging readers to consider how art can instigate—or dilute—activism and social change, and emphasizing lessons that can be learned and techniques that can be borrowed from earlier activists, the book is a useful and thought-provoking text for history and art students. It may also inspire activists, artist or otherwise, to maximize their effectiveness. 236 b&w illus. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly