The Art of Protest

The theme of my art exhibit is protest and the title of the exhibit is The Art of Protest. I chose the theme of protest because as I was looking through our textbook for connections between the artworks, I realized that many of them are protesting various things, from the actions of governments to art museums themselves. I selected the title The Art of Protest because it has a double meaning, which makes the exhibit more intriguing: the exhibit features artwork that protests various things, and it also shows how the act of protest is an art form in itself; a successful protest is neither too extreme—as violent riots are—nor are they so timid that they can easily be overlooked and ignored. The perfect protest gains a wide audience and has an enduring message, which it continually communicates over time, making artwork the perfect form of protest.

I found the most difficult part was citing all of the artworks, since many images on Artstor are actually other people’s photos of the artwork, like Picasso’s Guernica, for example. I ended up finding most of the images by searching what museum they are in and then getting the images and citations from the museum websites. After finding the citations and all of the correct information, it was also a challenge interpreting each artwork and how they fit into my theme of protest, but when I was done I was satisfied with my exhibit and its theme.

I have never curated artworks together by theme for a hypothetical exhibit, so I found that this project was very interesting for that reason. While it did pose some challenges, I now understand the artworks in my exhibit in a way that I did not before, which is a valuable result of this project. After watching the videos and creating this art exhibit, I now pay attention to the details that art curators agonize over, like what the lighting is like in each room and which artworks will reside next to one another in their exhibit.

Until next time!