We Make Each Other Beautiful: Art, Activism, and the Law

We Make Each Other Beautiful explores the work of woman of color and queer of color artists and artist collectives who engage in direct political action as a part of their art practice, tracing its development from the Harlem Renaissance to Yoko Ono and Judy Baca. It highlights the role of artivism in transforming law and society and profiles four contemporary artivists and the artivist collective Drawn Together.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 246 pages
Publication date: 15 June 2024
Publisher: Cornell University Press

We Make Each Other Beautiful is a documentary film that explores the work and lives of woman of color and queer of color artists and artist collectives who engage in direct political action as a part of their art practice. Defined by public protest, rule-breaking, rebellion, and resistance to governmental and institutional abuse, direct-action artivism draws on the aims, radical spirit, and tactics of the civil rights and feminist movements and on the struggles for disability rights, queer rights, and immigrant rights to seek legal and social change. Yxta Maya Murray traces the development of artivism as a practice from the Harlem Renaissance to Yoko Ono, Judy Baca, and Marsha P. Johnson. She also studies its role in transforming law and society. We Make Each Other Beautiful profiles the work and lives of four contemporary artivists — Carrie Mae Weems, Young Joon Kwak, Tanya Aguiñiga, and Imani Jacqueline Brown — and the artivist collective Drawn Together, combining new oral histories with sharp analyses of how their diverse and expansive artistic practices bear important aesthetic and politicolegal meanings that address a wide range of injustices.

Weight: 454g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501775598