Artists and Critics Plan Widespread Art Strike During Day of Trump’s Inauguration

Featured on artforum.com

An extensive group of artists and critics have called on colleagues in cultural industries to go on strike on January 20 to protest the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Signatories of the “J20 Art Strike” letter, thus far, include artists Allora and Calzadilla, Paul Chan, Hans Haacke, Barbara Kruger, Richard Serra, and Cindy Sherman. Dread Scott, whose work is featured on the cover of Artforum’s November issue, has signed as well. Critics who have joined the J20 Art Strike’s call to action include Hilton Als, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin Buchloh, Hal Foster, Lucy Lippard, and Barry Schwabsky, among many others.

Billed as “an act of noncompliance on inauguration day,” the J20 Art Strike, according to signatories, addresses many institutions: “Museums. Galleries. Theaters. Concert Halls. Studios. Nonprofits. Art Schools. Close for yhe Day,” the letter begins. It continues: “This call concerns more than the art field. It is made in solidarity with the nation-wide demand that on January 20 and beyond, business should not proceed as usual in any realm. We consider Art Strike to be one tactic among others to combat the normalization of Trumpism—a toxic mix of white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, militarism, and oligarchic rule. Like any tactic, it is not an end in itself, but rather an intervention that will ramify into the future. It is not a strike against art, theater, or any other cultural form. It is an invitation to motivate these activities anew, to reimagine these spaces as places where resistant forms of thinking, seeing, feeling, and acting can be produced.”

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