Art with a Message (Protest Art)

Created in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain, by German and Italian warplanes during the Spanish Civil War, Picasso's Guernica was his first politically-charged painting. Dada was an art movement born out of negative reaction to the horrors of World War I. The Guerilla Girls are an anonymous group of feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world. Object Orange is an artistic project in Detroit, Michigan which seeks to draw attention to dilapidated buildings by painting them orange. These are all examples of using visual art as a means of protest. This course will explore how artists throughout history have used visual imagery to raise attention for political and cultural issues.