Jessica Lack

An essential guide to how the power of art has been harnessed to effect political change across the modern world, from the struggle for universal suffrage to Black Lives Matter. A well-researched, concise guide to protest art, exploring what happens when artists join forces with radical political movements to foster change. The works and movements discussed in this book emerged at times of great upheaval including war, colonialism, independence, and changes of government. They reveal how art and politics have been intertwined throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Jessica Lack adopts an inclusive and international approach, presenting examples from nations and societies around the globe, including Sylvia Pankhurst’s paintings depicting the harsh realities faced by women manual workers in early 1900s Britain; the revolutionary aesthetic created by Emory Douglas for the Black Panthers in the 1960s, which documented and galvanized the campaign for the rights of Black Americans; Nandalal Bose’s portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, which became the iconic symbol of the Indian nonviolence movement in the 1930s; and the Chilean direct action work that contributed to the collapse of General Pinochet’s government. Each of the nine chapters addresses different ways in which art has been used to effect political transformation, taking in humor and satire; performance and propaganda; art’s relationships to institutions, the media, conflict, and the state; and its uses as a weapon, a galvanizing force, and a way of refusing the status quo. Artistic acts, collectives, and movements are examined in their context, revealing how they have influenced other artists and changed the wider political and artistic world. 88 color illustrations

Jessica Lack introduces fifty pioneering modern and contemporary art movements born out of political engagement, decolonization, marginalization or conflict. These movements have aimed to revitalize society by challenging the status quo. While not as well known as Pop Art, Dada and Futurism, these associations of artists - such as the Saqqakhaneh artists of Iran, the Stridentists of Mexico, Jikken Kobo of Japan or America's AfriCobra - have empowered and given voice to their members. Global Art brings unfamiliar material to life by exploring the unique historical context for each art movement, key cultural events and interconnections, and the key protagonists in the movement's evolution.

'Art is not a luxury. Art is a basic social need to which everyone has a right'. This extraordinary collection of 100 artists' manifestos from across the globe over the last 100 years brings together activists, post-colonialists, surrealists, socialists, nihilists and a host of other voices. From the Negritude movement in Africa and Martinique to Brazil's Mud/Meat Sewer Manifesto, from Iraqi modernism to Australia's Cyberfeminist Manifesto, they are by turns personal, political, utopian, angry, sublime and revolutionary. Some have not been published in English before; some were written in climates of censorship and brutality; some contain visions of a future still on the horizon. What unites them is the belief that art can change the world.