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The War of Art: A History of Artists’ Protest in America
Verso, 2025
240 pages
140mm × 210mm
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Read an interview with writer Cassie Packard for Frieze about “the impetus behind the book, instances of historical recurrence and the needs of our present moment.”

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.

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Events: 

NYC:

Rosendale:
Saturday, July 26, 4pm: Women’s Studio Workshop (in conversation with Brenda Miller)

Baltimore:
Wednesday, August 13, 7pm: Red Emma’s 

Toronto:
Friday, August 29, 7pm: Type Books (in conversation with Brian Sholis)

Boston:
Tuesday, September 23, 7pm: Brookline Booksmith 

Providence: 
Wednesday, Sepember 24, 7pm: Riff Raff (in conversation with E.C. Feiss)

New Haven:
Wednesday, October 22, 6pm: Possible Futures (in conversation with Alex Fialho)