Lauren O'Neill-Butler, The War of Art
About this Event
Writer, editor, and former SVA Professor Lauren O'Neill-Butler joins BFA Visual and Critical Studies and the SVA Honors Program to discuss her new book, . Named a best book of 2025 by NPR, The War of Art tells this history of artist-led activism and the global political and aesthetic debates of the 1960s to the present.
Artists in America have long battled against injustices, believing that art can in fact “do more.” The War of Art tells this history of artist-led activism and the global political and aesthetic debates of the 1960s to the present. In contrast to the financialized art market and celebrity artists, the book explores the power of collective effort — from protesting to philanthropy, and from wheat pasting to planting a field of wheat.
The book charts the post-war development of artists’ protest and connects these struggles to a long tradition of feminism and civil rights activism. The book offers portraits of the key individuals and groups of artists who have campaigned for solidarity, housing, LGBTQ+, HIV/AIDS awareness, and against Indigenous injustice and the exclusion of women in the art world. This includes: the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), Women Artists in Revolution (WAR), David Wojnarowicz’s work with ACT UP, Top Value Television (TVTV), Agnes Denes, Edgar Heap of Birds, Dyke Action Machine! (DAM!), fierce pussy, Project Row Houses, and Nan Goldin’s Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN).
Based upon in-depth oral histories with the key figures in these movements, and illustrated throughout, The War of Art is an essential corrective to the idea that art history excludes politics.
Lauren O’Neill-Butler is a New York-based writer and editor. Her books include (Karma, 2021) and (Verso, 2025), which was named one of the best books of 2025 by NPR, Observer, and Colossal, and one of the most influential books on United States history by the Brooklyn Public Library. She received a Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant in 2020 and the Beverley Art Writers Travel Grant in 2023. The editor of , a selective guide to art in New York, she was previously a cofounder of the nonprofit magazine November and Senior Editor of Artforum. She has also written for Art Journal, Bookforum, and The New York Times, among many others, and has contributed essays to various exhibition catalogues. She holds graduate degrees in art history and philosophy and has been a visiting critic at schools including Cooper Union, Harvard, Rutgers, Yale, and the University of Chicago. She is part-time faculty at Hunter College, CUNY, and the New School and is a union member of ACT-UAW Local 790 and PSC-CUNY.
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