Editing Protest art (section)

===Historical basis in art and politics===
Activist art cites its origins from a particular artistic and political climate.  In the art world, performance art of the late 1960s to the 70s worked to broaden aesthetic boundaries within [[visual arts]] and traditional [[theatre]], blurring the rigidly construed distinction between the two.  Protest art involves creative works grounded in the act of addressing political or social issues. Protest art is a medium that is accessible to all socioeconomic classes and represents an innovative tool to expand opportunity structures. The transient, interdisciplinary, and hybrid nature of performance art allowed for audience engagement.  The openness and immediacy of the medium invited public participation, and the nature of the artistic medium was a hub for media attention.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}

Emerging forms of feminism and [[feminist art]] of the time was particularly influential to activist art. The Feminist Art movement emerged in the early 60s during the [[Second-wave feminism|second wave of feminism]]. Feminist artists worldwide set out to re-establish the founding pillars and reception of contemporary art. The movement inspired change, reshaped cultural attitudes and transformed gender stereotypes in the arts.<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Guide to the Feminist Art Movement|url=https://www.riseart.com/guide/2418/guide-to-the-feminist-art-movement|access-date=2022-01-08|website=Rise Art|language=en}}</ref> The idea that “[[The personal is political|the personal is the political]],” that is, the notion that personal revelation through art can be a political tool,<ref>Suzanne Lacy, ed.  Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art.  (Seattle: Bay Press Inc., 1995) 27</ref> guided much activist art in its study of the public dimensions to private experience.  The strategies deployed by feminist artists parallel those by artists working in activist art.  Such strategies often involved “collaboration, dialogue, a constant questioning of aesthetic and social assumptions, and a new respect for audience”<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lippard |first=Lucy R. |url=http://archive.org/details/pinkglassswansel0000lipp |title=The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Essays on Feminist Art |publisher=[[New Press]] |year=1995 |isbn=978-1-56584-213-7 |pages=174 |language=en |url-access=registration}}</ref> and are used to articulate and negotiate issues of self-representation, empowerment, and community identity.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}

[[Conceptual Art]] sought to expand aesthetic boundaries in its critique of notions of the art object and the commodity system within which it is circulated as currency.  Conceptual artists experimented with unconventional materials and processes of art production.  Grounded by strategies rooted in the real world, projects in conceptual art demanded viewer participation and were exhibited outside of the traditional and exclusive space of the art gallery, thus making the work accessible to the public.  Similarly, collaborative methods of execution and expertise drawn from outside the art world are often employed in activist art so as to attain its goals for community and public participation.  Parallel to the emphasis on ideas that conceptual art endorsed, activist art is process-oriented, seeking to expose embedded power relationships through its process of creation.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}

In the political sphere, the militancy and identity politics of the period fostered the conditions out of which activist art arose.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}