WRITING A BOOK IS a unique opportunity to collaborate, and to be in communication with many brilliant people. I am forever grateful to Marc Favreau, Maury Botton, Azzurra Cox, and all at The New Press for supporting this project from the start. I thank them for their thoughtful suggestions, edits, and patience in allowing me ample time to develop my manuscript. Gratitude is also extended to colleagues and close friends who reviewed the manuscript—most notably to Josh MacPhee. Josh’s suggestions for edits were invaluable, as has been his support in other facets of my creative life. He brought twenty-five of us together to form the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative in 2007, a community that has continuously nurtured my hybrid practice of producing art for social-justice movements, writing about activist art, and curating activist art exhibitions.
I also thank Gregory Sholette, Dylan A.T. Miner, Alan W. Moore, Susan Simensky Bietila, Tom Klem, and Sandra de la Loza for reviewing specific chapters, along with James Lampert for his careful edits and for everything. Vast appreciation is also extended to John Couture for his insight during the early stages of the project, along with Gregory Sholette and Janet Koenig. Thank you also to Rachelle Mandik for her copyedits of the final manuscript.
In Milwaukee, I thank all my colleagues in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee who have allowed me the opportunity to teach my practice—art and social justice—from day one. Special thank-you to Kim Cosier, Lee Ann Garrison, Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Denis Sargent, Josie Osborne, Raoul Deal, Nathaniel Stern, Jessica Meuninck-Ganger, Shelleen Greene, and Laura Trafi-Prats, along with other colleagues across the University—Greg Jay, Linda Corbin-Pardee, Lane Hall, and Max Yela for supporting my scholarship, art, and teaching on topics that relate specifically to this study.
Thank you also to the teaching and learning community outside of academia—the many collective spaces and independent publications that have allowed me the opportunity to present on activist art and to contribute essays and interviews to the dialogue. In Chicago: Mess Hall, AREA Chicago, Daniel Tucker, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Lisa Lee, InCUBATE, Proximity, Ed Marzewski, and Mairead Case. In Milwaukee: the Public House and “Night School,” Paul Kjelland, Woodland Pattern, Michael Carriere and all colleagues at ReciproCity. In Madison: Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative, Dan S. Wang, and Camy Matthay and Sarah Quinn for the opportunity to present radical art history inside the prison industrial complex. In Detroit: Mike Medow, Jeanette Lee, Josh Breitbart, and all who organize the annual Allied Media Conference. In Bowling Green and elsewhere: Jen Angel, Jason Kucsma, and all involved in the past Allied Media Conferences, and the greatly missed Clamor magazine.
I also extend my gratitude to those who have supported my research and have invited me to contribute writings to various books and publications, including Temporary Services (Salem Collo-Julin, Marc Fischer, Brett Bloom), Jennifer A. Sandlin, Brian D. Schultz, Jake Burdick, Peter McLaren, Therese Quinn, John Ploof, Lisa Hochtritt, Josh MacPhee, Erik Reuland, Erica Sagrans, the Compass Collaborators (the Midwest Radical Cultural Corridor), and James Mann. Thank you also to those who have provided me with art and research grants: the Mary L. Nohl Individual Artists Fund in Milwaukee, and the Jean Gimbel Lane Artist-in-Residence at Northwestern University. Special thank-you to Polly Morris and Michael Rakowitz. Thank you also to Nato Thompson, Gretchen L. Wagner, Lori Waxman, and Linda Fleming.
I am also indebted to the many co-collaborators who have allowed me the chance to collaborate as an artist in a movement. Thank you first and foremost to all in Justseeds, and to Dara Greenwald, whom we miss dearly. Thank you to Aaron Hughes and the Chicago chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW); TAMMS Year Ten, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Jesse Graves, and all involved in the mud stencil action; the Chicago chapter of the Rain Forest Action Network (RAN); and all involved in the Warning Signs project.
Much appreciation is also extended to the activist art archives, in particular the Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG) in Los Angeles, the Interference Archive in Brooklyn, the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives and Radicalism Photograph Collection at NYU, the Joseph A. Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan, the LGBT and HIV/AIDS Activist Collections at the New York Public Library, and the Woman’s Building Image Archive at Otis College of Art and Design. And thank you to the art historians and the artists who informed this study. The book is a tribute to your work.
Much gratitude is extended to all the artists, art historians, historians, scholars, librarians, and archivists who provided images for this book, provided insight, and directed me to various collections. First and foremost thank you to those who reduced or waived image permission fees. It would not have been possible to compliment the text with so many images without your generosity. Special thank-you to Seiko Buckingham, Suzanne Lacy, Russell Campbell, the Yes Men, Betsy Damon, Aaron Hughes, Sue Maberry at the Woman’s Building Image Archive at Otis College of Art and Design, Faith Wilding, Nancy Youdelman, Judy Baca, Pilar Castillo at SPARC, Harry Gamboa Jr., Chon A. Noriega at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC), Francis V. O’Connor, Penelope Rosemont, Sandra de la Loza, Jon Hendricks, Marc Fischer, the Jump Cut editors, Mike Greenlar, Lincoln Cushing, Michael Shulman at Magnum Photos, Josh MacPhee at the Interference Archive, Carol A. Wells at the Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG), Julie Herrada at the Joseph A. Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan, and Evelyn Hershe at the American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark. I am a firm believer that art created for social justice movements should be part of the public commons and our shared collective history and not restricted by copyrights and expensive image permission fees, something that many activist artists and activist groups have embraced, often through Creative Common licenses. In closing, thank you to Azzurra Cox and Ben Woodward at The New Press for assisting me with the image permission process.
Lastly, and most importantly, thank you to my family—Laura, Isa, my parents, and my brothers. Special thank-you to Laura for the never-ending support of this project and the time needed to accomplish it. Finally, thank you to Howard Zinn. In 2003, I invited Professor Zinn to Milwaukee to present to my students, and during his visit we talked at length about art and activism. At the end of his stay, he encouraged me to propose a book to The New Press. His enthusiasm for the project and his early feedback helped fuel me through many years of research and revisions. Always the teacher, he reminded me of the need to inspire others, to communicate in clear prose, and to bring more people into the movement.