Tate | Young Tate: Exam Help: Issue-Based Art

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Issue-Based Art

Art can be a powerful tool for expressing views, thoughts and feelings about important issues. It can be used to influence people’s ideas or change their viewpoints.

Artists have used a wide variety of different media to create powerful works that put across their concerns about issues they care about: from paintings, sculptures or mixed media installations to posters, graffiti and signage.

Terry Setch adds wax and scrim to his painting Once upon a Time there was Oil III, Panel I (1981-2) making its surface as thick and messy as the pollution he is attacking. Mark Wallinger’s installation State Britain (2007) meticulously recreates a street anti-war protest.

Other artists have adopted approaches that can be reproduced to effectively reach a larger audience. The Guerrilla Girls use text and simple images in their posters that battle prejudice in the art world. Jenny Holzer adopts the electronic signboards more familiar on buses or trains to put across her message in Truisms (1984).