Art & Protest: Artists as Agents of Social Change

Many works of art, architecture, and design throughout history have expressly reinforced existing societal power structures. This exhibition highlights art created for the opposite purpose—to shed light on injustice and inequity, challenge hierarchies, and advocate for progress—and aims to offer a sense of the breadth and depth that protest art encompasses. 

Art & Protest unites examples of socially engaged art—produced primarily in the United States but in a few instances around the world—from the 19th century to the present. To showcase the artistic and ideological patterns that occur across different eras and social movements the works are grouped around seven aesthetic or conceptual strategies artists use to demonstrate the need for social change: Photography and Photojournalism; Social Commentary and Satire; Appropriation and Circulation; Text as Art; Transgressive Aesthetics; Picturing Difficult Truths; and Presence and Absence. Many works could feature in multiple categories. 

Highlighted protest movements and topics include, among others, AIDS awareness, anti-war campaigns, Black Lives Matter, the Civil Rights Movement, climate change, erasure of Indigenous identity, gun violence, homelessness, political censorship, the refugee crisis, trans pride, and women’s suffrage.