A global history of activist art from 1900 to the present day that offers vital new ways of thinking about art's political potential.
Activist art has transformed the world, yet its history has remained hidden precisely because of its success - what were once radical artistic experiments are now taken for granted as simply 'what a protest looks like'. Art is Our Weapon tells the stories of artists who created new forms of political action, revealing how avant-garde practices have shaped protest movements around the world.
Focusing on specific movements and art groups - including the Dadaists, Surrealists, Situationist International, Led by Donkeys and Pussy Riot - Art is Our Weapon follows activist art practices shared from movement to movement amid the emergence of new struggles against war, fascism, patriarchy, queerphobia and environmental destruction. Along the way, it explores anti-fascist marching bands, mass-demonstrations of gnomes against state communism, creative vandalism of advertising and statues, media hoaxes, symbolic soup-throwing spectacles, radical inflatable frogs and experimental protest technology from graffiti robots to anarchist ice-cream vans - tactics often equal parts serious and absurd. Posters, photographs, interviews and protest objects document this history and the movements that shaped it. In doing so, Art is Our Weapon offers new ways of thinking about politics, propaganda and what it means for art to succeed.
