Artwork has the facility to rework the world. It reaches individuals in ways in which typical language can not. It shapes tradition and drives political actions. Visible artists, poets, musicians and performers of all types maintain immeasurable sway over the hearts and minds of individuals worldwide, and have because the daybreak of civilisation.
At present, the US stands at an unprecedented and harmful crossroads. Our nation’s almost 250-year-old democracy is beneath siege from enemies each international and home, and the outcomes of our presidential election in November will endlessly form the way forward for our nation, our democracy and the fashionable world as we all know it. That is the place artwork meets activism.
Artists For Democracy 2024, a undertaking led by Folks For the American Manner, is working with world-renowned artists comparable to Shepard Fairey, Carrie Mae Weems, Beverly McIver, Titus Kaphar, Wangechi Mutu, Cindy Sherman, Hank Willis Thomas, Jeffrey Gibson, Ann Hamilton and others, to create works that talk to the precarious second that we’re in and to mobilise voters to the polls to defeat an existential risk to our democracy—Donald Trump.
As artistic interpreters of the world round them, artists throughout the US are paying attention to this risk and taking on their instruments to color an image, metaphorically and actually, of what’s at stake within the 2024 US presidential election and past.
Shepard Fairey, the road artist who turned globally famend in 2008 for his Hope portrait of Barack Obama that spoke to our hopes and desires, has already contributed 4 new items to Artists For Democracy 2024, with messages like “defend democracy towards fascism”. He additionally serves as a spokesperson and helps convene the group of artists who’re contributing to this marketing campaign, together with Carrie Mae Weems, who additionally serves on the board of administrators for Folks For the American Manner. All through their careers, each have used their artwork as a type of activism to assist form political discourse and cultural dialogue.
Energy of the billboard
One of many items Fairey created for the marketing campaign is a portrait of the legendary tv producer Norman Lear, who died in December 2023 on the age of 101. The work is an homage to his life, legacy and founding of Folks For the American Far more than 40 years in the past, to combat again towards right-wing extremism and to defend the elemental liberties established by the US Structure. Lear’s mission and legacy of utilizing arts and leisure to influence politics and tradition is maybe much more related now than ever earlier than in current historical past.
Shepard Fairey, Norman Lear portrait, 2024 Courtesy the artist and Folks For the American Manner
Along with inspiring individuals to take motion and vote within the upcoming election, artwork might help reframe and recontextualise the ideas of freedom, justice and liberty, which are sometimes co-opted by far-right zealots who wish to advance an agenda that’s antithetical to the true meanings of these phrases. Nowhere is that this extra placing than with the idea of freedom. Some Republican politicians have based mostly whole political narratives on the concept of defending particular person freedom, whereas actively selling and passing insurance policies that deny particular person freedoms—for instance, the disastrous rollback of reproductive rights because the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, which is most consequential for ladies, individuals of color and different traditionally marginalised communities.
With entry to abortion shaping as much as be a strong, deeply private and defining concern within the 2024 election, a number of artists taking part in Artists For Democracy 2024 have created works that talk to the continuing assault on reproductive freedom and name on us to take the boldest motion of all in defending this proper: vote. Beverly McIver speaks to the intersecting problems with race and gender justice in her piece titled VOTE Black Magnificence (2024).
With the election six months away, the Artists For Democracy 2024 marketing campaign has solely simply begun its efforts to make use of artwork that cuts by way of the noise and evokes individuals to the polls to defeat Trump. Since its launch in early April, which started with a ten-minute section by Rachel Maddow, the marketing campaign continues to prioritise fundraising efforts to help multi-platform public engagement earlier than the election, inserting the highly effective artwork on billboards and different direct media in battleground states, urging individuals to vote.
The transcendental and transformative energy of artwork is a vital a part of political and social change. With a lot at stake, the artists uniting on this effort are utilizing their work as an extension of their civic participation as residents, and utilizing their platforms as cultural influencers to save lots of democracy and shield the beliefs of a “extra excellent union”.
Rio Tazewell is the director of campaigns at Folks For the American Manner
