Artists often use words in their work, not only for aesthetic reasons, but also adress political issues. Sucj political and social issues include:
-environment
-violence
-nuclear warfare
-sexism
-racism
-... as well as many other heated topics of present day.
More and more artists are finding language to be a powerful tool when impacting the viewer.
Artists have many ways of conveying messages through language. Here's a sample of a few artists:
ACT UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power)
Holzer challenged the gallery distrubution system.
Jean Michel Basquiat
Jean Michel Basquiat
A collective established in New York in 1985. They use street posters printed with statistics and brief text to bring attention to issues such as discrimination against women and censorship. They use text rhetorically to influence the thoughts and actions of their audience.
His political messages are a bit more indirect.
Untitled (I Am Not Tragically Colored) 1990
Scott deals with censorship and power of authority to conrtol what we read and how it is portrayed.
Bonus: Here's a powerful + short ad campaign the GIRL EFFECT created (using text!):
