An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017

Aug 18, 2017–Aug 27, 2018

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Stop the War

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According to the National Archives, there were 58,220 American military casualties during the war in Vietnam. The number of Vietnamese military and civilian deaths has been estimated at one to three million. Opposition to the war, which had started on college campuses in the early 1960s, was catalyzed largely by protests. In the earliest major demonstration, on October 21, 1967, nearly 100,000 protesters gathered in Washington, DC. By 1970, two-thirds of Americans believed military engagement in Vietnam had been a mistake.

Posters were essential tools of education and persuasion in the antiwar movement. Produced rapidly and often distributed at no charge, they appeared on placards, in public spaces, and on the walls of college dorm rooms. Like Internet memes today, they combined image and text in compelling, graphically innovative ways; they were lacerating in their critique and often brimmed with satire and gallows humor. The Whitney recently acquired a significant collection of posters related to the movement, a selection of which is presented here for the first time.

In addition to calling for direct political action, artists made singular works that addressed the war in Vietnam. Edward Kienholz’s The Non War Memorial (1970) simulates the carnage with sand-stuffed military uniforms scattered on the floor as if they are corpses. Nancy Spero brings the conflict home through her powerful and elegiac work Hours of the Night (1974), the title of which is borrowed from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Allusive and poetic, with texts referencing a fire in her apartment alongside torture in Vietnam, the work suggests how the war crept into every corner of American life.

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Vietnam Referendum '70 Committee, Let the People Vote on War!, 1970

War poster.
War poster.

Vietnam Referendum '70 Committee, Let the People Vote on War!, 1970, from the Daniel Wolf Collection of Protest Portraits. Offset lithograph with pen and ink, 19 1/2 × 13 1/2 in. (49.5 × 34.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from The American Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President 2017.10.341

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On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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