A People’s Art History of the United States
250 Years of Activist Art and Artists Working in Social Justice Movements
A New Press People’s History
Howard Zinn, Series Editor
—FROM A PEOPLE’S ART HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
Most people outside of the art world view art as something that is foreign to their experiences and everyday lives. In a brilliant new edition to The New Press People’s History series, A People’s Art History of the United States places art history squarely in the rough-and-tumble of politics, social struggles, and the fight for justice from the colonial era through the present day. In doing so, it presents a provocative and fascinating alternative art history that shows us how activist art often emerges from the streets and social movements – and communities that produced these movements – and exists far beyond the confines of traditional art institutions.
Combining historical sweep with detailed examinations of individual artists and their work, author and artist Nicolas Lampert offers a groundbreaking history of radical art. With over two hundred images, A People’s Art History of the United States offers a politically charged narrative that spans the conquest of the Americas, the American Revolution, slavery and abolition, feminism, the civil rights movements, and the contemporary antiwar movement, among others.
Through dramatic retellings of important historical events, readers will be introduced to key works of American radical art, including the graphic agitation of the abolitionist movement, photographs of the Lower East Side housing conditions, the Haymarket monument controversy, the WPA-Federal Art Project, Gran Fury and ACT UP NYC, the Yes Men, and more. A People’s Art History of the United States is nothing less than a vital alternative education for anyone interested in the powerful role that visual culture plays in our society – and in the ongoing culture of resistance.
November 5, 2013
hardcover / e-book
7 1/2 x 9 1/4, 366 pages
978-1-59558-324-6 (hardback) 978-1-59558-931-6 (e-book)
200-plus black-and-white images
list price for hardcover edition: $35
Update: The paperback version will be released by The New Press on October 6, 2015. List price: $21.95
People’s Art History of the US: Table of Contents
Series forward by Howard Zinn
Introduction
Acknowledgments
1. Parallel Paths on the Same River
2. Visualizing a Partial Revolution
3. Liberation Graphics
4. Abolitionism as Autonomy, Activism, and Entertainment
5. The Battleground Over Public Memory
6. Photographing the Past During the Present
7. Jacob A. Riis’s Image Problem
8. Haymarket: An Embattled History of Static Monuments and Public Interventions
9. Blurring the Boundaries Between Art and Life
10. The Masses on Trial
11. Banners Designed to Break a President
12. The Lynching Crisis
13. Become the Media, circa 1930
14. Government Funded Art: The Boom and Bust Years for Public Art
15. Artists Organize
16. Artists Against War and Fascism
17. Resistance or Loyalty: The Visual Politics of Miné Okubo
18. Come Let Us Build a New World Together
19. Party Artist: Emory Douglas and the Black Panther Party
20. Protesting the Museum Industrial Complex
21. “The Living, Breathing Embodiment of a Culture Transformed”
22. Public Rituals, Media Performances, and Citywide Interventions
23. No Apologies: Asco, Performance Art, and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement
24. Art is Not Enough
25. Anti-Nuclear Street Art
26. Living Water: Sustainability Through Collaboration
27. Art Defends Art
28. Bringing the War Home
29. Impersonating Utopia and Dystopia