The Second Election of Donald Trump: How are Political Artists Responding?

Written By Mairi Alice Dun

The second election of Donald Trump to the American Presidency has the potential to produce a momentous impact on the art world. Progressive artists saw this coming.

 

Shepard Fairey, Vote Prints, 2024. Photo Courtesy: Kickstarter.

 

Artists for Democracy 2024—a project by the People for the American Way Foundation—believes in art’s ability to shape social change. Beginning in 2020, the project amassed the support of many world-renowned political artists including Shepard Fairey, Carrie Mae Weems, Cindy Sherman, and Ed Ruscha. As the contest between Trump and Kamala Harris took shape, they mobilized in support of the Vice President. The group designed billboards in swing states to increase voter turnout. They also sold unique merchandise, the proceeds from which went towards supporting local activists in those key areas.

The project was vocal on how they viewed the threat provided by Trump’s potential victory. Their Kickstarter page reads: “With your help, we can come together one more time to avoid dictatorship and save democracy.” For Artists for Democracy, the stakes were the very existence of the United States as a democratic nation.

 

Shepard Fairey, Billboard Mockups, 2024. Photo Courtesy: Kickstarter.

 

The art made in support of this cause was passionate, striking, and prolific. Fairey—known for his Hope poster of Barack Obama—created a series of Vote posters. Beverly McIver, an autobiographical painter, created VOTE Black Beauty, replacing the ‘T’ with fallopian tubes to emphasize the danger Trump’s candidacy provided to reproductive rights movements. Harkening back to her The Kitchen Table Series of the 1990s, Carrie Mae Weems introduced a line of plates reading, “Not Again, Not on MY Watch! Vote 2024,” referencing her desire for everyone to keep their place at the table.

 

Beverly McIver, VOTE Black Beauty, 2024, Billboard Mockup. Photo Courtesy: Kickstarter.

 

Carrie Mae Weems, NOT AGAIN Plate, 2024. Photo Courtesy: Kickstarter.

 

Other artists, not expressly affiliated with Artists for Democracy, made their politics visible too. Several chose to demonstrate support for the Harris-Walz campaign through donations, or by creating works for the Art for Democracy Benefit Auction, an event held online between September 24th and October 1st of 2024. Jeff Koons, Sara Sze, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Lawrence Weiner, and Sherman all donated works to the auction, each of which were offered for sale without a buyer’s premium. Ed Ruscha was commissioned to create an entirely original work, entitled One Reason for the event. The proceeds went towards Democracy Matters, a community of pro-democracy donors and activists supporting progressive institutions which were “doing the work necessary to win in November.” [1]

 

Ed Ruscha, One Reason, 2024, dry pigment and acrylic on paper, 27.9 x 38.4 cm. Photo Courtesy: artspace.com

 

Kamala Harris’s loss has thus far produced an eerie, defeated, and somehow deafening silence. Most of the artists involved in campaigning against Trump have not responded publicly. This response differs from that among progressive artists in the wake of Trump’s first victory. For example, in 2016 Kruger released a piece for the cover of New York Magazine denouncing Trump as a ‘Loser.’ Of the few who have responded in the months since, it seems all that is able to be mustered are repeats of the works made in 2016, creating a sort-of art world groundhog day effect.

Shepard Fairey, following the results, released an altered version of his 2016 print, Dignity in a Coffin (a response to Trump’s first win at the polls). The 2024 version replaces ‘dignity’ with ‘democracy’: a reference to the Artists for Democracy 2024 Project that shows his view that a second Trump term brings us into a harsher reality than the first. The artist who brought us the iconic Hope poster in 2008 is now eulogizing the death of all democracy.

 
 

British street artist Banksy resurfaced an old mural, also seeming in mourning for the future.

 

Bansky, Follow Your Dreams—Cancelled, 2010. Photo Courtesy: banksy.co.uk

 

Perhaps the only immediate work that conveyed a slightly hopeful feeling was put forth by artist and illustrator Oliver Jeffers, who reposted his painting Lost at Sea, also from 2016, on Instagram. In the caption accompanying the image, he expressed an intention of not giving up on bringing about the kind of world he wishes his children to grow up within, though this second win felt like “a new kind of loss.”

 
 

Despite this, Jeffers told Fast Company, “I don’t feel like creating [new work] right now, but I hope this too passes.” [2]

Progressive artists, like progressive citizens writ large, are grieving the election of a figure who many understand as supportive of racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, and jingoistic agendas. Trump’s campaign, promises, and past record certainly could give many in the art world cause for concern. While it’s an open question of whether or not his tax and tariff plans will bump or slump the auction house economy, many predict that he will once again withdraw the US from membership with UNESCO—as he did during his first term—signalling to the world a lack of support for the protection of cultural heritage sites. There is additional speculation about the effect the second Trump administration might have on the NFT market, due to his pro-cryptocurrency stance. In summary, like all world markets, there has been a tense feeling in the run-up to today’s inauguration.

Once this original period of grieving is over, what new works will be created in the face of a second Trump administration? Perhaps, this silence is not one of the defeated, but instead one of artistic preparation.

 

Works Cited:

[1] Artspace. "Benefit Auction for Democracy Matters 2024." Artspace, 2024. https://www.artspace.com/auctions/benefit_auction_for_democracy_matters_2024.

[2] Fast Company. "Illustrators Respond to Trump's 2024 Election Win." Fast Company, November 6, 2024. https://www.fastcompany.com/91227372/illustrators-respond-to-trumps-2024-election-win.

Bibliography:

 

Mairi Alice Dun

Editor-In-Chief, MADE IN BED

Mairi Alice Dun
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