Art as Activism: 7 Artists Create for Change
From graffiti on city streets to exhibits at major museums, artists have long depicted the fight for equal rights and freedom. Art can play a unique role in encouraging others to take action and in changing hearts and minds.
The message that injustice is rampant in American society is the theme of Social Justice: It Happens to One, It Happens to All, a new exhibit at Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art in Moraga, California, featuring 43 artists organized by curatorial team Gutfreund Cornett Art. The paintings, photographs, prints, and sculptures on display at the museum, which is about 20 miles east of San Francisco, address a range of issues, including race, migration, and gender inequality.
“It’s such a complex overall topic, we wanted to have diversity in the themes of the work but also diversity in the artists and their perspective on those topics,” Sherri Cornett, a curator of the exhibit, told TakePart. “We wanted to try to create a story from across the combined works.”
Three of the pieces in the exhibit were chosen by attorney and women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke, who garnered national media attention in 2012 when she was a student at Georgetown University. Republican members of the House of Representatives refused to hear Fluke’s testimony on the importance of requiring health insurance providers to cover contraception.
“Art has the power to touch us in a deeper way in our society. There’s so much noise surrounding how these issues are being talked about, especially on cable news,” Fluke wrote in an email to TakePart. “Art has the ability to cut through in a deep and powerful way that touches us on very serious issues that should demand our emotional attention.”
Following are seven of the artworks on display at Saint Mary’s College until Dec. 11.