Chapter 11: Social Protest/Affirmation

Humor is another strategy for effective protest

Sun Mad, takes imagery from commercial culture and subverts it. Raisin growers used insecticides contaminating the groundwater the local population used for drinking and bathing. Ester Hernandez changed the image of healthy eating into a message of death.

The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti (Cont)

Shahn collapses time, simultaneously shows: the courthouse steps the portrait of the judge the faces of Sacco and Vanzetti in their coffins 3 commissioners who allowed the executions the commissioners are dour and righteous, backed by institutional rigidity harsh colors express distress at the death of the men

Woman with Keloidal Scars (Cont)

The series was meant to document past horrors and to protest U.S. troops stationed in Japan for decades. This powerfully disturbing photograph is one of a series that exposes the mutilation of victims who survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II.

Portrait of George

by Robert Arneson, is a bust of George Moscone, a popular mayor of San Francisco who was assassinated. Portrait of George departs from the status quo of bland, bronze portrait heads of political leaders .This sculpture is irreverent, colorful, and very large. Portrait of George was officially removed from the civic center after one week because the pedestal was deemed crude and inappropriate. The work was later sold to a private collector.

Käthe Kollwitz

dedicated her work to ending war and poverty. She lost her son and grandson during WWI and WWII. In her artwork, she turned to past conflicts to show the destructive energy of war. This work depicts an uprising in the 16th-century Peasant War in Germany, one of 7 prints to show the destructive energy of war. Kollwitz shows a woman leading the revolt, breaking old stereotypes about women's passivity. The uprising was unsuccessful, as the forces of the ruling class suppressed the peasants with brutality.

Fit for Active Service

exposed the German doctors and officers, who sent elderly, sick, or very young men to fight for Germany near the end of World War I. Grosz uses his pen to depict: smug, laughing faces of the officers soldiers at attention, their seams lining up with the floor and the window frames symbolizing conformity the doctor happy, he's found another body for the front lines factories belching out machinery of war the skeleton seems most human, it is rounded, detailed

Woman with Keloidal Scars

from a series of photographs of victims of the bombing of Nagasaki. Tomatsu's photograph is technically beautiful, with a full range of deep blacks contrasting with the bright light casting shadowing textures of the scared skin of his face. This powerful view of his twisted neck gives us a lasting impression of Senji's lifelong suffering.

oppressive situation: Lewis Hine.

A direct way to make social protest art is to illustrate the oppressive situation. Lewis Hine photographed miserable labor conditions and slum housing in the United States. Known for exposing child labor in mines and textile mills, where children were doing the lowest-paying, most tedious jobs.

The Aboriginal Memorial.

Aboriginal artists have used art to affirm their cultural values, which have been suppressed by Australians of European descent. 43 artists collaborated to make The Aboriginal Memorial. The work is com-posed of 200 logs, one for each year of settlement, hollowed out as traditional Aboriginal coffins.

Jenny Holzer focused (Cont)

"Protect me from what I want," written in a culture where money can buy almost anything. The electronic signs flash words like a mass-media attack, and then they quickly slip away almost before we can grasp them. The sheer number of phrases, the speed at which we see them, and their contradictory messages destroy thought.

Lawrence created 41 paintings between

1937 - 1941 about François-Dominique Toussaint-L'Ouverture, a slave who led a revolt in Haiti that resulted in the abolition of slavery there in 1794.

The Aztec Codex Codex Borbonicus, early 16th century

Art can affirm the history and culture of a people even as that culture is being attacked and eradicated. The Aztec Codex Borbonicus is a religious calendar that was made during the period of the Spanish conquest, either just before or just after the fall of the Aztec Empire.

Art Versus Politics (Honoré Daumier)

Art often pokes fun at the political status quo. The political cartoon has a long history of challenging politic and society in Western nations

PROTESTS AGAINST MILITARY ACTION

Artists have depicted war, glorified the victors, shown the defeated. 200 years ago, artists began to make art protesting a particular war or warfare altogether. Much of past art was made for victorious political or religious leaders. Warfare was a means to gain power, art was a way to display that power.

FIGHTING FOR THE OPPRESSED

Artists who fight for the rights and affirm the values of repressed peoples use several strategies to make their points forceful: beauty illustration narrative humor shock Most social protest works are designed to affect public consciousness, rather than to prescribe specific changes.

Strategies for Protesting Oppression

Beauty and excitement can be very effective in protest art. In Liberty Leading the People, Liberty has been personified as a partially nude woman reminiscent of a Greek goddess. Energized, oblivious to danger, she carries a rifle and the flag of the French Revolution. This painting is an homage to the Paris revolt in 1830.

The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Ben Shahn used narrative as a protest strategy in The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti. This painting tells the story of the unjust conviction and execution (for robbery and murder) of Italian immigrants who were active in labor organizations, avoided the draft in World War I, and were political anarchists. Sacco and Vanzetti: Italian immigrants active in labor organizations avoided the draft in World War I political anarchists arrested and convicted for robbery and murder Many claimed that Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted because of their politics

The knot (Cont)

Bonilla took a political risk in this painting because of its criticism of the political status quo. He also took artistic risks, making the painting purposefully ugly and shocking. The style of this work was contrary to prevailing Salvadoran aesthetics for painting at that time.

Lawrence trained

CONNECTION Lawrence trained in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance and was influenced by the vibrant community of artists, writers, and performers, as shown in Faith Ringgold's The Bitter Nest, Part II: The Harlem Renaissance Party (Fig. 3.32).

Hans Haacke's MetroMobiltan (Cont)

Corporations profited from apartheid, including Mobil Oil who sold supplies to South African military and police. Mobil provided major financial backing to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City to mount a blockbuster exhibition entitled "Treasures of Ancient Nigeria." MetroMobiltan raises awareness of the often-hidden ways that one country's culture and economy can profit from an unjust situation.

Strategies for Protesting Oppression (Cont)

Delacroix's painting mixes elements of: Realism Idealism Romanticism

Magdalena Abakanowicz's Backs (Cont)

Fibers were pressed into the mold so that each back is similar to the others. Degrees of individuality emerge in the twist of the fiber and slight variations created as each back was removed from the mold. The fibers resemble wrinkled skin, knotted muscles, and visceral tissue. Their organic quality emphasizes our physicality and our ties to the natural world. The weary backs also suggest endurance, strength, and survival.

Light Sentence

Her work, Light Sentence deals with: personal identity the body surveillance control

Humor is another strategy for effective protest (Cont)

Hernandez chose an art form that allows her to reach many people, just as advertising does. This work exposes the dangerous chemical pesticides that are used in vineyards to grow grapes that eventually become raisins.

Yinka Shonibare. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews Without Their Heads

Historical quotes, clothing, and humor are used to protest the colonial past in Mr. and Mrs. Andrews Without Their Heads, by artist Yinka Shonibare The aristocrats are headless, recalling the fate of the ruling class during the French Revolution. The printed cotton cloth, which Mr. and Mrs. Andrews are wearing, is associated with African culture. (The cloth is not African at all, but is made in the batik method that the Dutch and English manufacturers learned in Indonesia and then sold in West Africa.)

The Legislative Belly

In France, Honoré Daumier was known for his pointedly satirical caricatures, until a government crackdown outlawed works like, The Legislative Belly. Today this is commonplace in every newspaper and many magazines

Hans Holbein the Younger. Jeande Dinteville and Georges de Selve

In Northern Europe, power was concentrated in religious and secular rulers, but their absolute authority was being questioned and the worth of the individual (humanism) was being developed. Hans Holbein the Younger painted the portraits of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve. De Dinteville was a political leader and de Selve a religious leader, both were fervent humanists. Items on the table reflect their interest in culture, arts, mathematics, astronomy. The emphasis on learning rather than authority. Symbols of discord are present—a broken lute string alludes to tensions between church and state, the long, stretched shape at the bottom becomes a skull, a symbol of death.

Cildo Meireles. Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project, Brazil

Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project, is a response to Brazil's military government, which supported itself by selling the country to foreign investors, (mostly from the United States). The natural environment, the cultures of indigenous peoples were being destroyed. Art openly critical of the government was repressed. Cildo Meireles took empty Coca-Cola bottles, screen-printed subversive messages on them, and returned them for refilling.

Jacob Lawrence. No. 36: During the Truce Toussaint Is Deceived and Arrested

Jacob Lawrence recounted the accomplishments, challenges, and oppressions of the African community uprooted to the Western Hemisphere by slavery. No. 36: During the Truce Toussaint Is Deceived and Arrested by LeClerc. LeClerc Led Toussaint to Believe That He Was Sincere, Believing That When Toussaint Was Out of the Way, the Blacks Would Surrender

Edward Kienholz. The State Hospital (Cont.)

Kienholz drew on his experiences as an employee in a mental hospital, where he saw a staff member repeatedly hit a patient in the stomach with a soap bar wrapped in a towel, so there would be no surface bruises.

Magdalena Abakanowicz's Backs

Magdalena Abakanowicz's Backs, consists of 80 slumping, hollow backs, more than life-size, but without legs, heads, and hands. Backs alludes to the human condition in times of great distress. The artist suggests in this installation the modern malaise of uniformity, the loss of self and of individuality.

Social Protest/Affirmation

Many artists protest injustice with their artwork. They identify villains, honor heroes, promote causes with emotional and visual impact. Protest art is a form of affirmation, because it is based on respect for human dignity and the belief that change is possible.

Elegy to the Spanish Republic XXXIV (Cont)

Motherwell was influenced by the Surrealist process called Automatism, which incorporates intuition, spontaneity, and the accidental when creating artworks, similar to his Abstract Expressionism style. His black-and-white forms suggest: bull testicles leather berets of the Guardia Civil living forms crushed by the black bands

The Scene of the Crime (Whose Crime?)

Pepón Osorio's mixed-media installation, The Scene of the Crime (Whose Crime?), affirms the worth of Puerto Rican culture in New York, while protesting how the people are depicted in mass media. He has re-created a typical Puerto Rican house, cluttered with kitsch statuettes, inexpensive religious objects, plastic plants, sentimental family photos, trophies, covers of TV Guide. "Only if you can understand that it has taken years of pain to gather into our homes our most valuable possessions; but the greater pain is to see how in the movies others make fun of the way we live."

Edward Kienholz. The State Hospital (detail)

Shocking ugliness can be used in the service of protest art. The State Hospital, criticizes the way society deals with incompetent people. The patient is completely isolated and has no life beyond this room.

Yinka Shonibare. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews Without Their Heads (Cont)

Shonibare has created a 3-D parody of the famous 18th C. painting in which the landed gentry show off their estate. The artist shows that cultures are intertwined and many people may like the idea of cultural purity, it does not exist. CONNECTION Shonibare based his sculpture on the eighteenth-century painting by British artist Thomas Gainsborough, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (Fig. 2.11).

The Aztec Codex Codex Borbonicus, early 16th century

The Codex Borbonicus and the handful of other manuscripts that have survived from this era preserve the pre-Columbian culture. This image depicts calendar glyphs surrounding the large image of two gods, Quetzalcoatl (light and sun) and Tezcatlipoca (moon and destruction),

The Knot

The Knot, by Miguel Antonio Bonilla, depicts 2 ominous figures that represent the country's police and politicians. The knot that connects them appears made of 2 elongated phalluses. Bonilla refers to the chauvinism in his culture that allows factions to oppress others and also causes domestic violence.

Kara Walker creates life-size, cutout silhouette figures based on racist imagery

The imagery is based on fact and fantasy. "They Waz Nice White Folks While They Lasted"(Says One Gal to Another) , cutouts are enhanced with projections in darkened galleries. The cutout life-size figures based on literature about the slave era in the United States have had both positive and negative responses. Walker makes these images because they are controversial and should be discussed.

QUESTIONING THE STATUS QUO

The status quo is the existing state of affairs, which appears natural instead of constructed and evolving. Artists often take a critical look at the "normal," at underlying and ingrained systems, beliefs, and ways of operating within a culture.

Light Sentence (Cont)

The swinging bulb is like prison searchlight, implying surveillance. Lockers should hold private possessions safely, but everything is exposed. The wire boxes suggest animal cages in a laboratory or the oppressively uniform low income high-rise housing. Light Sentence reveals the instability that those without power endure.

Dreamtime

These memorials are for native peoples who died as a result of European settlement and were never given proper Aboriginal mortuary rites. Artists painted the logs with their important clan Dreamtime symbols, affirming traditional Aboriginal culture.

Edward Kienholz. The State Hospital (Cont)

To protest against society's treatment of people it deems incompetent, Kienholz's installation exposes the neglect and filth he found in a state mental hospital. Kienholz's props are actual institutional objects. The strongest impact comes from the patient's body: bony knees sagging, exposed genitals leathery skin

Cildo Meireles. Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project, Brazil (Cont)

Using Coca-Cola bottles as vehicles for political messages was clever in many ways: Coca-Cola is everywhere there is an existing system of reusing bottles Coca-Cola is a symbol for U.S. culture

Affirming the Values of the Oppressed

When a group of people is oppressed, their way of life tends to be discounted or ridiculed. Art is an especially effective tool for affirming the lifestyles and values of downtrodden groups. Ambrogio Lorenzetti showed how common citizens prosper when Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude reign, represented by allegorical figures in the fresco Allegory of Good Government: The Effects of Good Government in the City and in the Country. In a climate of security, businesses flourish, culture thrives, and the fields are fruitful.

The Social Environment

William Hogarth, satirized the English upper classes in a series paintings called Marriage à la Mode, a comedy mixed with criticism and condemnation. The series ends miserably with infidelity, scandal, and death by duel. Hogarth's paintings were turned into inexpensive prints that were enormously popular among the English middle class.

William Kentridge's charcoal drawings

William Kentridge's charcoal drawings and film animations are based on the causes and injustices of apartheid. Kentridge's art points out the moral difficulties that attend all instances of power, ownership, and oppression on a grand scale.

Elegy to the Spanish Republic XXXIV

XXXIV is part of a series of paintings mourning the loss of liberty in Spain after the Fascist victory. Motherwell believed abstraction universally communicated the struggle between life and death, freedom and oppression. The large size of the painting makes these struggles seem monumental. This work was part of a series that contained 150 paintings in which the artist expresses his mourning over the loss of liberty in Spain after the Fascist forces were victorious during their Civil War.

Leo, 48 Inches High, 8 Years Old, Picks Up Bobbins at 15¢ a Day

a young boy who dodges under textile looms to pick up loose thread spools. Hine's composition emphasizes: large scale of the weaving machines that dwarf the child a child very young and apprehensive gloomy, littered atmosphere His images were published in magazines, changing public opinion and policy. Child labor was eventually outlawed in the 1930s.

Goering the Executioner

is a photomontage, combining and manipulating news photographs and drawing. The subject is Field Marshal Hermann Goering, of the Nazi party. Heartfield depicts the Nazi Field Marshal as a butcher to forewarn the public of the bloodshed that was to come. John Heartfield* dedicated much of his art to exposing and condemning the horrors of Nazi Germany. -Heartfield's method for Goering's portral includes: increasing the thickness of Goering's neck,emphasizing aggressiveness displaying the burning Reichstag, likely perpetrated by the Nazis black-and-white elements giving an unvarnished, blunt quality meat cleaver and stained apron, warnings of Nazi bloodshed

Echo of a Scream

is a response to the horror of the Spanish Civil War. Siqueiros' symbols: screaming, helpless, child amid the destruction of warfare represents humanity the repeated large, detached crying child's head depicts the pain of unseen victims dark tones add a somber note to the ugly surroundings Urbanization, industrialization, endless piles of waste the result of progress Siqueiros was a Mexican citizen who fought in Spain against the Fascists and their Nazi backers.

Shibboleth

is an installation by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. She created a 548-foot-long crack in the floor, very thin at first but opening larger. The work is about belonging versus out- sider status. Salcedo has said that the work was about the divide between races and social classes.

Hans Haacke's MetroMobiltan

is art designed to raise social consciousness. Haacke was advocating for native Africans in South Africa who were politically and economically repressed under apartheid, a system of legal racial separation.

The Outbreak

is the 5th of 7prints about the Peasant War in Germany (16th C.) peasants group at the right left they rush, attack their oppressors with crude weapons the dark woman in front is leader, the conscience for the group -her upraised arms incite action her bony, twisted hands/arms documents to the harshness of life stark blacks and whites convey the emotional moment

Jenny Holzer focused

on beliefs widely accepted in the US today. In Untitled (Selected Writings), Holzer wrapped electronic signs around the spiral interior of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The phrases seem familiar, but they sound contradictory or even idiotic. Holzer says, "They're about how we drive ourselves crazy with a million possibilities that are half correct".

Mercenaries I

shows two "guns for hire," exposing thugs who use brute force to bolster a repressive government. flattened figures against a flat background figures pushed aggressively to the foreground viewers are dwarfed by the 11 ft. painting viewers share the same perspective as the victim -thick paint has been scraped, surface seems raw victim has no identifying traits flesh looks repulsive on the mercenaries and victim colors are jarring and acidic Golub worked from news photographs and insisted his images realistically report atrocities were occurring regularly.

The Executions of May 3, 1808

the citizens of Madrid rose up against Napoleon's army. The rioters were executed outside the city. Goya: depicts Spaniards facing the firing line the man in white, arms outstretched is like Christ crucified the soldiers, repeated poses, hidden faces are dehumanized barrels of pointed rifles are rigidly organized, a war machine -Painted from sketches the artist made at the actual event, this work was a protest against Napoleon's occupational army in 1808 Madrid. Goya individualized the Spaniards trembling, praying, or protesting as they face the firing line, so that we identify with their horror. -Goya painted this 6 years after the execution