The War of Art: A History of Artists’ Protest in America

How artists have changed America through direct action

Artists in America have long battled against injustices, believing that art can in fact ＂do more.＂ The War of Art tells this history of artist-led activism and the global political and aesthetic debates of the 1960s to the present. In contrast to the financialized art market and celebrity artists, the book explores the power of collective effort -- from protesting to philanthropy, and from wheat pasting to planting a field of wheat.

Lauren O’Neill-Butler charts the post-war development of artists’ protest and connects these struggles to a long tradition of feminism and civil rights activism. The book offers portraits of the key individuals and groups of artists who have campaigned for solidarity, housing, LGBTQ+, HIV/AIDS awareness, and against Indigenous injustice and the exclusion of women in the art world. This includes: the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), Women Artists in Revolution (WAR), David Wojnarowicz’s work with ACT UP, Top Value Television (TVTV), Agnes Denes, Edgar Heap of Birds, Dyke Action Machine! (DAM!), fierce pussy, Project Row Houses, and Nan Goldin’s Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN).

Based upon in-depth oral histories with the key figures in these movements, and illustrated throughout, The War of Art is an essential corrective to the idea that art history excludes politics.

Lauren O’Neill-Butler is a writer and editor. Her first book, Let’s Have a Talk: Conversations with Women on Art and Culture, (Karma, 2021) brings together nearly ninety interviews. A former Senior Editor of Artforum, she has also contributed to Aperture, Art Journal, and The New York Times. In 2020, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers grant.