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This chapter examines how citizen-artists in Indonesia creatively and critically engaged in subjectifying the state through pointedly political art, generating narratives and fantasies both visual and discursive, private and public, and images of past, present, and future during the early period of post-Suharto reformation. It describes several notable works by Indonesian artists including Yuli Kodo's Indonesia Sakit, Alex Luthfi's Kado Reformasi, and Entang Wiharso's Don't Touch Me. The chapter suggests that these works reveal how the transformation of political engagements led to these artists' newfound subjectivity as post-New Order Indonesian citizens capable of publicly critiquing the state as well as reenvisioning, through their paintings, imagined possibilities for a new democratic Indonesian state.

The introduction addresses two intersecting trajectories in American art between the late 1960s and the early twenty-first-century century. On the one hand, it traces the ways in which disciplinary Conceptual Art, with a capital “C”, expanded into the diverse set of practices that have been characterised generally as conceptualism. On the other hand, it shows how the expansion of a critical conceptualism has been strongly informed by the turbulent rights-based politics of the 1960s. Initially, first generation Conceptual artists responded to preceding art movements within disciplinary boundaries, examining the definition of art itself and engaging abstract concerns. Artists then applied the basic principles of Conceptual Art to address a range of social and political issues. This development reflects the influence of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student movement, the anti-war movement, second wave feminism, and the gay liberation movement. Central in the American context, the multiple identity-based mobilisations that came to be known as “identity politics” were further articulated in the 1970s. The artists addressed in this book: Adrian Piper, Joseph Kosuth, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Andrea Fraser, Hans Haacke, and Charles Gaines expanded the propositions of Conceptual Art.

This chapter asks how a precisely articulated set of practices, defined by artists in the 1960s as Conceptual Art, evolve into a broad notion of conceptualism, and how the latter had expanded into its present forms. It shows how, in the United States context, some of the most important strategies of conceptualism developed through the influence of contemporaneous politics, more specifically the transition from Civil Rights into Black Power, the New Left, the anti-war movement, feminism, and gay liberation, as well as what later came to be collectively named “identity politics” in the 1970s. A range of artists who have self-defined as conceptualists synthesised Conceptual analytic approaches with an outlook on identity formation as a means of political agency, and not as a representation of the self, a strategy that significantly expanded in the 1970s. Two major aspects of identity politics have impacted the field. The first, activist and administrative, consisted of protests against existing institutions, the developments of action groups and collectives, and the subsequent formulation of alternative spaces. The second was the bearing that it had on artistic strategy, form, and subject matter. This chapter focuses on practices that took a critical outlook on identity formation.

This chapter argues that the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom should be understood as a legal argument in defense of John composed in accordance with the principles of late antique judicial rhetoric found in the Art of Political Speech (Anonymous Seguerianus) and Art of Rhetoric, attributed to Apsines of Gadara. This chapter analyzes the Dialogue in terms of its four constitutive parts, namely, the introduction [proemion], narration [diegesis], argumentation [kataskeue or pistis], and conclusion [epilogos] and explains the purpose and historical value of each. This chapter reveals that Palladius used the dialogue form to mimic courtroom debate and that he subordinated all narrative elements to the argumentation. It is the argumentation that is at the very heart of the Dialogue, even though its significance has been ignored or even dismissed by most scholarship which has long viewed the dialogue as a historical or biographical narrative.

Evaluates “pro‐life” and “pro‐choice” media campaigns, featuring fetuses and coat hangers respectively, and shows how both reflect individualistic ideologies about responsibility and freedom. Rather than participate in public discourses that construe individual responsibility and liberty as simple moral alternatives, considers feminist political art that raises questions about our collective responsibilities to support others. Also considers visual and performance artwork that draws attention to the way that pregnancy and persons are culturally constructed. Urges reproductive rights activists to jettison the coat hanger image in favor of images that would promote constructive public dialog on access to contraception, child and family support, the duties of all citizens to provide life‐saving help, the positive aspects of enabling women to control their fertility, and the dangers of religious extremism.

This chapter traces the origins of the first Chicano arts organizations and explores how they combine art and commerce, two areas previously considered distinct and contradictory. Focusing on the period 1969–1978, the chapter illustrates how the earliest ventures operated with complex and nuanced views about commerce, politics, community, and the arts. It challenges notions in Chicana/o studies that dismiss commerce as antithetical to Chicano movement or community politics, and it finds that Mechicano Art Center and Goez Art Studios and Gallery exceed notions of civic and cultural engagement, inaugurated pedagogies now central in Chicana/o studies and arts institutions, and mapped a decolonial imaginary for Los Angeles.

Art and images were and continue to be central channels for the transnational circulation and reception of Maoism. While there are several books about the significance of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, this collection of seventeen essays constitutes the first effort to demonstrate the global influence of Maoism on art and images, from 1945 to the present. The Introduction explores the protean quality of this political phenomenon, especially when it crossed paths with, and was expressed through, the visual arts. After providing an overview of the contents and organisation of the chapters, which challenge the traditional geographies of art history, the Introduction states that collectively, the studies reveal that the cultural contradictions that are always present in art and art history research remain a powerful source of political social, and aesthetic transformation.

This chapter asks what it means to be a political artist. It looks at Arthur Szyk's work within the context of ‘political’ art and twentieth-century art in general. The chapter asserts that Szyk was at least a political artist throughout the years of the Second World War: he dedicated virtually all of his energies during this period towards fighting the Axis and bolstering the Allies. A ‘one-man war’, as he was sometimes characterized, must be a political being and, if he is an artist, then he must be, perforce, a political artist. Yet the chapter also phrases the question in a broader way — by asking what the artist should do with their talents, not just in times of crises, but throughout a professional career. In all likelihood Szyk would have responded that he was working ‘on behalf of humanity’. In this respect he was an anachronism among twentieth-century artists.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the equestrian monument as political art and Peter the Great's idea to commission a monument to himself in his own lifetime. It then describes Catherine the Great's appointment of Etienne-Maurice Falconet to create a new monument to Peter the Great; Prince Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn, Russia's minister plenipotentiary in Paris, who helped in the selection of Falconet; and the work done by Falconet before his trip to Russia.

This chapter explores the nature of Arthur Szyk's works during the war years. It shows that his exhibitions during the Second World War were markedly different from his earlier ones: in the nature of the works on view, in the frequency of the public displays, and, most importantly, in their intent. Unquestionably, most of the political works were executed more quickly than the manuscripts, book illustrations, or paintings, because of their topical nature and the urgency of the message. Also, the majority of Szyk's work prior to this time had been conceived in the rectilinear format traditional in western painting, with the action unfolding in an elaborated environment — a world complete and separated from the viewer. However, virtually all of the anti-fascist materials were created without backgrounds. The figures occupy an indefinite space, accompanied only by those objects absolutely necessary to convey the idea. This convention breaks down the division between image and audience, focuses the viewer's attention, and hastens the decoding of the message.

This chapter presents a photo essay featuring protest art during the Umbrella Movement. One of the most outstanding achievements of the Occupy Movement was its artistic creation during the occupation, inside and outside of the occupied zones. The movement triggered an unprecedented outburst of creative expressions, turning the occupied zones into giant theaters and galleries that provided new definitions of political/community art. Outside the occupied zones, there were also countless images, texts, and animations delivered via websites, e-mail, and Facebook. The adaptation of popular culture not only created commonly identified images and values, but it also generated a sense of humor with a touch of cynicism, which is typical of Hong Kong's pop culture. Starting at the turn of the century, when street protest became a common activity in Hong Kong, a new concept called “happy confrontation” was invented. This was a belief that political confrontation could be undertaken in a celebrative mode and that street demonstrations could take the form of a carnival. Of course, there were people who disagreed with such a concept, especially for the Umbrella Movement, which was full of hardship, conflicts, and brutal attacks. Nevertheless, throughout the occupation, such humor and cynicism could be easily found, especially at Mongkok.

This chapter examines the role of time and memory in a documentary by addressing the question: what is gained and lost by spectators when watching a film? A documentary is considered aesthetics because of its temporal disjuncture presented between the real time of the past event and its presence again in the film that can be seen as spectral. The chapter also discusses the aspect of time as political art.

Two years after the 1966 military coup in Argentina, three musicians, Norberto Chavarri, Roque de Pedro and Guillermo Gregorio, formed the intermedia performance collective Movimiento Música Más. The collective combined experimental music, visual art, poetic performance, and political action, carrying out activities in concert halls, plazas, and city buses. This chapter examines the activist art of this little-known “Other” avant-garde that existed at the periphery of 1960s internationalism, focusing on two of its performance pieces: Plaza para una siesta de domingo (1970) and Música para colectivo línea 7 (1971), composed by Norberto Chavarri. These two performances embody the group’s approach to experimentalism: a commitment to bringing art and people into public spaces during a time of rigid governmental control of those spaces and bodies, creating domestically inspired aesthetic responses to the complex problems of late 1960s and early 1970s Buenos Aires.

Despite the success of his employment at Harper's Weekly, Thomas Nast continued to experiment with other art forms and other avenues of self-expression. This chapter discusses the political themes that began to dominate Nast's work. The election of General U. S. Grant to the presidency was one of the political campaigns that helped push Nast even more deeply towards political art.

Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s 1993 video opera, The Cave, addresses a potent political subject: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet shortly after its premiere, they publicly disavowed art’s capacity to effect political or social change. This disavowal belies the explicitly political genesis of The Cave, the development of which throughout the 1980s coincided with rising Arab-Israeli tensions and the First Intifada. Early sketches, outlines, and descriptions of The Cave reveal that the pair initially viewed their quasi-opera as a step toward “reconciling the family of man.” By 1993, however, they instead adopted a seemingly apolitical stance, shying away from answering the fundamental question they had set out to answer: How can Jews and Muslims live together peacefully? This chapter argues that traces of this bid for peace remain in the opera’s music, text, and narrative structure, and that despite its purported neutrality, The Cave espouses an Americanized vision of Arab-Israeli reconciliation.

This chapter considers the question of how the radical use of the camera can translate into concrete political activism that effects social change. A way to do this is to stop confining the definition of political art to protest art and, conversely, to recognize the sublime in openly political artworks. It is also necessary to shift the concept of oblique to stealth. Oblique can be likened to passing, whereas stealth, if one is being conscious and strategic, can contribute to the dismantling of normative gender and sexuality in explosive ways. This is not just a rhetorical move. It is queering an approach to video making, queering how one looks through the camera, and queering how one sees what is captured. To be queer, one must become conscious of one’s location. Queering one’s approach to making video is not to become queer in one’s sexual practices but to become conscious of looking 45 degrees off center, askew and somewhat bent.