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Art Works: How Organizers and Artists Are Creating a Better World Together
An inside look at the organizers and artists on the front lines of political mobilization and social change
“Ken [Grossinger] is one of the smartest strategists I know.” —John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president, 1995–2009
An artist’s mural of George Floyd becomes an emblem of a renewed movement for racial equality. A documentary film injects fuel into a popular mobilization to oust a Central American dictator. Freedom songs course through the American civil rights movement.
When artists and organizers combine forces, new forms of political mobilization follow—which shape lasting social change. And yet few people appreciate how much deliberate strategy often propels this vital social change work. Behind the scenes, artists, organizers, political activists, and philanthropists have worked together to hone powerful strategies for achieving the world we want and the world we need.
In Art Works , noted movement leader Ken Grossinger chronicles these efforts for the first time, distilling lessons and insights from grassroots leaders and luminaries such as Ai Weiwei, Courtland Cox, Jackson Browne, Shepard Fairey, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Alexander, Bill McKibben, JR, Jose Antonio Vargas, and more. Drawing from historical and present-day examples—including Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, the Hip Hop Caucus, the Legacy Museum, and the Art for Justice Fund—Grossinger offers a rich tapestry of tactics and successes that speak directly to the challenges and needs of today’s activists and of these political times.
“Ken [Grossinger] is one of the smartest strategists I know.” —John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president, 1995–2009
An artist’s mural of George Floyd becomes an emblem of a renewed movement for racial equality. A documentary film injects fuel into a popular mobilization to oust a Central American dictator. Freedom songs course through the American civil rights movement.
When artists and organizers combine forces, new forms of political mobilization follow—which shape lasting social change. And yet few people appreciate how much deliberate strategy often propels this vital social change work. Behind the scenes, artists, organizers, political activists, and philanthropists have worked together to hone powerful strategies for achieving the world we want and the world we need.
In Art Works , noted movement leader Ken Grossinger chronicles these efforts for the first time, distilling lessons and insights from grassroots leaders and luminaries such as Ai Weiwei, Courtland Cox, Jackson Browne, Shepard Fairey, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Alexander, Bill McKibben, JR, Jose Antonio Vargas, and more. Drawing from historical and present-day examples—including Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, the Hip Hop Caucus, the Legacy Museum, and the Art for Justice Fund—Grossinger offers a rich tapestry of tactics and successes that speak directly to the challenges and needs of today’s activists and of these political times.
248 pages, Hardcover
Published July 18, 2023
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January 16, 2025A short, richly researched book about the integration of arts and music into social movements in the US American context. The first four chapters lay out lots and lots of examples, from the Black freedom struggle to migrant justice organizing, from the importance of music to the uses of visual arts to the power of film. The last two chapters focus more on institutional infrastructure, namely museums and funders. And the afterword ties the book together by quoting at length from interviews that the author did with artists who have done important work in movement contexts.
I really appreciate any movement book that starts by asking what people are already doing, which this one does. I learned lots of new things from it, especially from the many examples it gives of arts as part of movements. That alone makes this a great resource for me as I think through some related questions for a potential future writing project of my own.
That said, the book has some limitations. For instance, it is *intensely* US American – there is a sort of sensibility to how a lot of movements happen in the US, and specificities of context, that differ even from the nearby and very similar context of Canada, where I'm based, and that was very, very evident here. And of course there's nothing wrong with a book being grounded in a particular place, but there's something a little eye-rolly about that specificity going mostly unmarked when it's the globally dominant specificity. But, really, that's a pretty trivial thing.
More serious is its relative lack of attention to negatives, to failure of attempts to integrate arts into organizing. I don't know if this was the explicit intent, but it reads as if it's trying to convince someone – organizational leaders and funders, perhaps – that it's worth putting energy, time, and resources into having an arts element to campaigns, rather than thoroughly exploring both the strengths and the weaknesses, the possibilities and the limitations, of doing so. It doesn't really talk about what it looks like for a campaign or a movement to invest huge amounts of effort or money into artistic things and then realize after, you know what, that was a waste, that was a bad choice. Or even to realize that it didn't do any harm and it was nice to have, but it didn't add much either. It is simply not plausible that those kinds of scenarios never happen, and I don't think it does our movements any favours not to talk about them.
And the book doesn't deal at all with the reality that a key feature of our neoliberal era is that there can sometimes be space for expression – for giving voice, for representing – but none for actual, material change, and it is sometimes an elite tactic to grant the former as a way of defusing demands for the latter. So what does that mean for how we relate to expressive (artistic, musical, etc.) practices in our organizing? That's not to say that expression, even in the absence of other organizing, is necessarily bad, just that it is characteristic of our era that we often have space to blow off steam by putting radical content out into the world, by yelling (or singing or drawing or writing) militant-sounding things into the void, when neither that nor anything else we can easily do will change whatever oppressive circumstance is in question...and doing so sometimes makes us feel like we've accomplished some radical political something when we really haven't. We need to think about that means for how we relate to arts/music in movements.
Related to this is the lack of attention to how to deal with assertions about the impacts of artistic and musical practices, or specific instances of art or music, that are made genuinely and in good faith, often by artists and musicians, but that just amount to a repackaging of common assumptions about what those things do in the world and are not a product of any critical thought or investigation...and are often not particularly grounded in knowledge of how change actually happens. It's not just this book, either. As I've been reading and thinking about related questions over the last year, I've noticed that it is really, really common for people – again, particularly people who come from a background of arts or music or writing – to say things, sometimes quite grandiose things, about what making stuff can do in the world that are based on assumption and faith and little else. And I don't say that to be unfairly dismissive of "Art and poetry and music can change the world!" claims, because I think sometimes they really can. But if we're going to make good choices about the roles that arts and music play within movements, then we need to engage honestly and critically with such claims and also be able to say things about what art *can't* do (or isn't doing, or hasn't done, or won't do).
Finally, it was a bit frustrating how unsystematic the book's analysis is, in some respects. I mean, I'm not looking for some sort of Social Movement Studies thing where it reduces movements to abstract variables – I hate that approach, and think it's mostly a waste of time and energy. Unlike a lot of SMS, this book was clearly grounded in perspectives emerging from movements, which I think is valuable and important. But it feels, particularly given the density and richness of examples in the book, that there's great possibility for starting from what's here and building a sort of grounded abstraction from these examples into ways of thinking that could be of real use to organizers and artists as they contemplate if/how to bring their practices together. And I don't think it does that nearly as effectively as it could.
Anyway. Despite all of the critical things I just said, I think this book was very interesting and very useful, it just has some limitations.
I really appreciate any movement book that starts by asking what people are already doing, which this one does. I learned lots of new things from it, especially from the many examples it gives of arts as part of movements. That alone makes this a great resource for me as I think through some related questions for a potential future writing project of my own.
That said, the book has some limitations. For instance, it is *intensely* US American – there is a sort of sensibility to how a lot of movements happen in the US, and specificities of context, that differ even from the nearby and very similar context of Canada, where I'm based, and that was very, very evident here. And of course there's nothing wrong with a book being grounded in a particular place, but there's something a little eye-rolly about that specificity going mostly unmarked when it's the globally dominant specificity. But, really, that's a pretty trivial thing.
More serious is its relative lack of attention to negatives, to failure of attempts to integrate arts into organizing. I don't know if this was the explicit intent, but it reads as if it's trying to convince someone – organizational leaders and funders, perhaps – that it's worth putting energy, time, and resources into having an arts element to campaigns, rather than thoroughly exploring both the strengths and the weaknesses, the possibilities and the limitations, of doing so. It doesn't really talk about what it looks like for a campaign or a movement to invest huge amounts of effort or money into artistic things and then realize after, you know what, that was a waste, that was a bad choice. Or even to realize that it didn't do any harm and it was nice to have, but it didn't add much either. It is simply not plausible that those kinds of scenarios never happen, and I don't think it does our movements any favours not to talk about them.
And the book doesn't deal at all with the reality that a key feature of our neoliberal era is that there can sometimes be space for expression – for giving voice, for representing – but none for actual, material change, and it is sometimes an elite tactic to grant the former as a way of defusing demands for the latter. So what does that mean for how we relate to expressive (artistic, musical, etc.) practices in our organizing? That's not to say that expression, even in the absence of other organizing, is necessarily bad, just that it is characteristic of our era that we often have space to blow off steam by putting radical content out into the world, by yelling (or singing or drawing or writing) militant-sounding things into the void, when neither that nor anything else we can easily do will change whatever oppressive circumstance is in question...and doing so sometimes makes us feel like we've accomplished some radical political something when we really haven't. We need to think about that means for how we relate to arts/music in movements.
Related to this is the lack of attention to how to deal with assertions about the impacts of artistic and musical practices, or specific instances of art or music, that are made genuinely and in good faith, often by artists and musicians, but that just amount to a repackaging of common assumptions about what those things do in the world and are not a product of any critical thought or investigation...and are often not particularly grounded in knowledge of how change actually happens. It's not just this book, either. As I've been reading and thinking about related questions over the last year, I've noticed that it is really, really common for people – again, particularly people who come from a background of arts or music or writing – to say things, sometimes quite grandiose things, about what making stuff can do in the world that are based on assumption and faith and little else. And I don't say that to be unfairly dismissive of "Art and poetry and music can change the world!" claims, because I think sometimes they really can. But if we're going to make good choices about the roles that arts and music play within movements, then we need to engage honestly and critically with such claims and also be able to say things about what art *can't* do (or isn't doing, or hasn't done, or won't do).
Finally, it was a bit frustrating how unsystematic the book's analysis is, in some respects. I mean, I'm not looking for some sort of Social Movement Studies thing where it reduces movements to abstract variables – I hate that approach, and think it's mostly a waste of time and energy. Unlike a lot of SMS, this book was clearly grounded in perspectives emerging from movements, which I think is valuable and important. But it feels, particularly given the density and richness of examples in the book, that there's great possibility for starting from what's here and building a sort of grounded abstraction from these examples into ways of thinking that could be of real use to organizers and artists as they contemplate if/how to bring their practices together. And I don't think it does that nearly as effectively as it could.
Anyway. Despite all of the critical things I just said, I think this book was very interesting and very useful, it just has some limitations.
June 23, 2023
Ken Grossinger is a social and economic justice activist and Director of the Impact Philanthropy and Donor Advising division of Democracy Partners. For thirty-five years he has been working with unions, philanthropic and community organizations, encouraging collaboration as a means of social change. In Art Works, he discusses the ways that the arts have in the past affected social movements, lists dozens of contemporary social-cultural projects and posits that strategic collaboration between culture, social movements and philanthropy has great potential to boost the impact of social justice projects and to involve people from a variety of groups.
Grossinger starts with one of America’s most visible cultural-social examples, the involvement of musicians and community groups in the civil rights movement., arising from singing traditions in the Black church and moving through the popular folk-style music of Pete Seeger, Peter Paul & Mary and Joan Baez, to the public murals and social media activism of Black Lives Matter. Subsequent chapters detail cultural activism on behalf of the environment and immigration.
While reading these chapters, I was struck by the lack of arts organizations included. Most of the examples were of individual artists and musicians collaborating with commercial businesses and social nonprofits. I learned why when I reached chapter 5. This and the following chapter examine the role of traditional museums and philanthropic foundations in social movements, and makes a strong case for disrupting long held notions about how they operate. Museums are, for example, hampered by their need to schedule months and years in advance (making responding to current conditions difficult), their need to cater to the desires of donors and board members, and their need to maintain buildings and collections. Museums have also tended to emphasize events rather than long-term relationships, and have worked from the top down rather than bottom up. Grossinger lists several museums who have created advisory boards, reimagined public spaces, created long-term community relationships, and looked internally to issues from wage structures to challenging donor insistence on particular points of view. One of the examples of the latter include the prevalence of “art-washing,” in which donors attempt to use art as a way to improve public relations.
The only thing that bothered me with this book is the relative lack of examples of nonprofit music and theater organizations (film and commercial music are well represented), as are examples of local communities doing good work. The latter is understandable given the territory that would need to be explored, but it’s still worth noting that sometimes local organizations are more nimble than larger ones and can respond to current issues with fewer financial resources. I can think of several examples in my own hometown, including a mural of local community leaders of color, a public art exhibit about honeybees, and an exhibit of community-made Dio de Los Muertos altars, all of which helped steer the local conversation on issues of importance.
Grossinger conducted over one hundred interviews, and the book includes extensive notes, color plates, and indexing, all of which make it appropriate as a university-level textbook, but is written in a style that is accessible to community leaders from all sectors. I highly recommend it.
Many thanks to the New Press and NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.
Grossinger starts with one of America’s most visible cultural-social examples, the involvement of musicians and community groups in the civil rights movement., arising from singing traditions in the Black church and moving through the popular folk-style music of Pete Seeger, Peter Paul & Mary and Joan Baez, to the public murals and social media activism of Black Lives Matter. Subsequent chapters detail cultural activism on behalf of the environment and immigration.
While reading these chapters, I was struck by the lack of arts organizations included. Most of the examples were of individual artists and musicians collaborating with commercial businesses and social nonprofits. I learned why when I reached chapter 5. This and the following chapter examine the role of traditional museums and philanthropic foundations in social movements, and makes a strong case for disrupting long held notions about how they operate. Museums are, for example, hampered by their need to schedule months and years in advance (making responding to current conditions difficult), their need to cater to the desires of donors and board members, and their need to maintain buildings and collections. Museums have also tended to emphasize events rather than long-term relationships, and have worked from the top down rather than bottom up. Grossinger lists several museums who have created advisory boards, reimagined public spaces, created long-term community relationships, and looked internally to issues from wage structures to challenging donor insistence on particular points of view. One of the examples of the latter include the prevalence of “art-washing,” in which donors attempt to use art as a way to improve public relations.
The only thing that bothered me with this book is the relative lack of examples of nonprofit music and theater organizations (film and commercial music are well represented), as are examples of local communities doing good work. The latter is understandable given the territory that would need to be explored, but it’s still worth noting that sometimes local organizations are more nimble than larger ones and can respond to current issues with fewer financial resources. I can think of several examples in my own hometown, including a mural of local community leaders of color, a public art exhibit about honeybees, and an exhibit of community-made Dio de Los Muertos altars, all of which helped steer the local conversation on issues of importance.
Grossinger conducted over one hundred interviews, and the book includes extensive notes, color plates, and indexing, all of which make it appropriate as a university-level textbook, but is written in a style that is accessible to community leaders from all sectors. I highly recommend it.
Many thanks to the New Press and NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.
July 2, 2024
I would call this book unreadable in that it feels like a 180 page Wikipedia summary of recent activism stories with no meaningful inspiration for action. You know it’s bad when they have a section about how people see murals therefore they’re a good way to get the message across. I was okay with it up until midway through the book mis-titles the name of Stanley Nelson’s movie. His movie is called “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” but the book insists on calling it “Black Panther: Vanguard of the Revolution” (and even misspells the hashtag in its campaign) which makes the whole chapter read as though the author didn’t even watch Stanley Nelson’s documentary and was getting it confused with the superhero movie. This kind of stuff annoys me to no end and reeks of a lack of care and proofreading that I usually only see in bad online articles, not published media. Activism through art is essential. This book won’t help you get there.
November 16, 2023
This is a fascinating book about how art can be a powerful tool in organizing for change. Grossinger surveys decades of progressive activism, showing the role of posters, murals, songs, theater, and film in advancing causes from civil rights and environmental protection to immigrants’ rights and the opioid crisis. This is a fun book to read because the dozens of stories are so inspiring. Even though I’ve been an activist involved in many of the causes the book describes, I read about creatives doing amazing things I’d never known about, and some of the book’s photos are really wonderful. The color photo of JR’s “Giant” peering over the border wall with Mexico is nearly worth the purchase price of Art Works all by itself.
September 29, 2024
Read this mainly to (re)discover some of the great activist-linked works of art described here. The analysis is good, but very dry.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews