Table of Contents

Introduction: A Prehistory of Political Modernist Art Chapter 1: State-Sponsored Art, 1949-present -Zhadnovian socialist realism and 1945: Alexander Deineka - Postwar Western socialist realisms: André Fougeron; Renato Guttuso; Pablo Picasso; Diego Rivera - African socialist realisms: Tshibumba kanda Matulu, Congo; Monument to Agostinho Neto, Angola - American art and the Cold War: Jackson Pollock - Political Cold War Painting in the west: Sigmar Polke; Eugen Schoenebeck; Erro; Bernard Rancillac; Tseng Kwong Chi - Wric Bulatov and late-Soviet political painting Chapter 2: Civil Rights/Postcolonial Movements,1960- - Art of the Civil Rights movement and its legacies: Romare Bearden; Betye Saar; David Hammons; Lorna Simpson - Postcolonialist art: Yinka Shonibare; Chris Ofili; Steve McQueen; Bodys Isek Kingelez; Meschac Gaba Chapter 3: The Anti-War Movement, 1965- - Vietnam: Leon Golub; Nanacy Spero; Ed Kienholz; Peter Saul; George Segal; Erro ( Gundmundur Gundmundsson); the Guerilla Art Action Group; Mark di Suvero' Groupe Cronica; Wolf Vostell; Martha Rosler - Afghanistan, the Gulf Wars, and Middle East conflict: Jeff Wall; Harun Farocki; Walid Ra'ad - Torture: Luis Camnitzer; Doris Salcedo; Francisco Botero Chapter 4: Feminisim.,1970- -US feminisims: Womanhouse ( Miriam Shapiro and Judy Chicago); Betye Saar; Carolee Schneeman; Eva Hesse; Ana Mendieta; Barbara Kruger; Cindy Sherman - European femininisms: Mona Hatoum; Shirin Neshat; Le Groupe Amos (Congo); Wangechi Mutu Chapter 5: Gay Rights, 1969- - Gay rights and AIDS activism inside and outside of the artworld: ACTUP; Gran Fury; Group Material; Ross Bleckner; David Wojnarowicz; Martin Wong; Oliviero Toscani ( for Benetton) - Lesbian identity: Catherine Opie Chapter 6: Environmentalist Art, 1972- - Origins of a "land ethic" in art reclamation: Robert Smithson; Hans Haacke; Betty Beaumont; Alan Sonfist; Agnew Denes; Helen Mayer-Harrison and Newton Harrison: Joseph Beuys - New environmentalism: Mel Chin; kathryn Miller; Ines Doujak; Sokari Douglas-Camp and Platform London; Beatriz da Costa Chapter 7: Anti-Globalization, 1999- - In real time and space: Thomas Hirshhorn; Alfredo Jaar; Alighiero Boetti - Migrants' and Workers' rights: mierle Laderman Ukeles; Yolanda Lopez; Chantal Akermann; Multiplicity; Minerva Cuevas; Huit Facettes ( Senegal); Corie Cole; the Border Film Project - Informatics Activism: 0100101110101101.ORG; Radical Software Group; Mongrel; Raqs Media Collective Epilogue: Art and Politics to Come - Bioethics: Eduardo Kac; Critical Art Ensemble: Tissue Culture & Art

Promotional Information

Contemporary art is incresingly concerned with swaying the opinions of its viewier. To do so, the art employs various strategies to convey a political message. This book provides readers with the tools to decode and appreciate political art, a crucial and understudied direction in post-war art.

About the Author

Claudia Mesch is Associate Professor of Art History at the School of Art at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Her publications include Joseph Beuys: The Reader (edited with Viola Michely, I.B.Tauris and MIT Press, 2007) and Modern Art at the Berlin Wall: Demarcating Culture in the Cold War Germanys (I.B.Tauris, 2008)