The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art

Gregory Sholette is an activist artist, writer, and Professor of studio art at Queens College, CUNY. He has participated in, documented, and written about activist art for over forty years.

"Since the global financial crash of 2008, artists have become increasingly engaged in a wide range of cultural activism targeted against capitalism, political authoritarianism, colonial legacies, gentrification, but also in opposition to their own exploitation. They have also absorbed and reflected forms of protest within their art practice itself. The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art maps, critiques, celebrates and historicises activist art, exploring its current urgency alongside the processes which have given rise to activism by artists, and activist forms of art. Author Gregory Sholette approaches his subject from the unusual dual perspective of commentator (as scholar and writer) and insider (as activist artist), in order to propose that the narrowing gap separating forms of activist art from an aesthetics of protest is part of a broader paradigm shift constituted by the multiplying crises within contemporary capitalism and democratic governance across the globe."