Winter Is Coming: The Art World Responds to Trump

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A sculpture of a naked Trump made a brief appearance in New York’s Union Square. It was the work of The statue was created over the past four months by a sculptor identified only as “Ginger” and the American Activist Collective INDECLINE. (Photo: Marcus Santos/New York Daily News)

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Peter Bahouth, Atlanta-based stereoscopic photographer and previous Executive Director of (sequentially) Greenpeace US, the Turner Foundation, and the US Climate Action Network

I feel as if my hair is on fire and all I have to put it out is a ball-peen hammer.

I’ve been a full-time artist for 3 years, but spent the previous 30 as a trained irritant and advocate. Climate change and reproductive rights, the main issues I worked on, and both are among the many critical issues targeted by Trump. Goodbye US participation in international efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, EPA, funding for Planned Parenthood and Supreme Court protection.

Scary stuff. But the heartbreaking part is how divided we are. And how binary. Black lives matter, or cops … Coal plants or a planet with a fever … the election was just the last example. There would be protesters in the street either way the election went. Common ground in this election went out the window when Democrats made sure Bernie Sanders was the choice we didn’t get.

I’ve handcuffed myself to train tracks to block chemical shipments, lobbied in Congress to prevent logging in wilderness areas, and directed the efforts of the country’s largest network of organizations working on climate change. But I’ve learned that whether you choose resistance or capitulation, both can be unimaginative and tiresome.

Advocacy can change the way people think, but art can change how people feel. As artists we should consider what we care about and what we would do if we knew we were among the last generation of artists on the planet. Because I think we are.

And if you want to have your portrait taken while thinking about those two things, give me a call and we’ll set something up. That’s what I’ll be doing until midterm elections two years from now when the pendulum will swing back just enough to choose another side.

As for the question about possible impact of the election on the arts, it can hardly get any worse. Currently the US budget for military bands is 3 times the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts.


Benjamin Britton, artist, Athens
My pre- and post-election state of mind is mostly an ongoing sense of shame and guilt that we have let down people here and around the world. Prior to Tuesday, November 8, 2016, and starting when I marched for peace before the Gulf War and through to volunteering on the campaigns of Democratic Party candidates during this last absurd election, I have demonstrated, organized, and volunteered against global trade deals, illegal wars, hate speech, police brutality, and for single-payer healthcare and two Obama campaigns. It’s not like I was always doing something. Actually, I probably spent more time on vacation than being an active activist with the exception of two years during the Iraq War when I was working as a grassroots organizer. After November 8, 2016, I hope to make myself more useful again. Also, I hope to continue to do my best to interrupt the bias of my own privilege (an aspiration in which I know I am sometimes unsuccessful) and be an ally to those who are oppressed by living in a society of bias and privilege.
I think we should look at art to explore the complexity of human perspectives and subjectivity. In this last election, the hateful whiteness that Trump metastasized shocked us when it got plurality of the vote in a corporate media environment that has profit as its goal. Representation, identification, and perspective, to put it briefly, were important in the result. Finding a way to have effective democratic processes in a ubiquitously mediated environment is going to be very challenging. I hope we will withdraw our consent from systems of power that benefit from a corporate media and short memories. Without our consent, power has no authority. I hope we stop buying what they’re selling.
I hope to demonstrate, volunteer, organize, and resist as a way of being in the world, because power and inequality is dangerous to peace and dignity, and because people of conscience resist as a way of having dignity even in the face of failure and futility. Artists in America are likely acquainted with failure and futility. If they were that daunting for us, we wouldn’t be artists. I make paintings about human perception, nature and ecology, love, beauty, wonder, and a bunch of other stuff that I find makes life worth living. Although my work isn’t usually rhetorically political, I am always very excited to see good political work. I’m deeply thankful to all the beautiful community organizers in the peace movement who gave me tools and confidence to occasionally express my feelings of justice in the political realm. Over the next few years, we are going to have many opportunities to resist, organize, and be allies to each other. I also hope those that can spare it will give some money to the orgs that will defend us when we speak out, like the National Lawyers Guild and ACLU.
My “gut feeling”, since you asked, is that it’s going to get bumpy. I think we should buckle our seat belts, because America is now officially fooling around with fascism.       


Steven L. Anderson, artist, Atlanta
We told our children that we would protect them and to not be scared. They have learned about bullying in school, so they’ll understand
We told our spouses to stay strong, but not “everything will be alright”
We’ll invite our peeps to the gallery for coffee, to sit on pillows, draw, and talk about what it means to be an artist in the Trump era
Art competition applications are a wonderful distraction
Facebook is a source for solace, and the abyss
The future is harder than ever to see, except through exhibitions scheduled.
Will try moving to a lunar calendar
Passports are a hefty expense, but there is no time like the present
There is no time like the present
How can you organize when you’re so stretched for time already?
Does degenerate art exist today? That show in Germany was a killer on your CV
Living in our imaginations seems so necessary
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