Lauren O’Neill-Butler will write about global artistic activism during times of public health emergency such as the novel coronavirus and the ongoing opioid crisis. Emphasizing the means by which artists and art workers have collaborated to establish mutual aid networks, fundraisers, and other forms of public relief, she will address art and activism’s immediate and long-term imperatives to their various communities. Her writing will also take up gaps in dominant histories of activist art since the 1960s and will consider collectives such as the BECC, the Asco Group, CADA, Heresies, Gran Fury, and Gulf Labor, whose responses to systemic injustices like white supremacy and capitalism highlight the generative connections among—and the disconnections between—queer, feminist, black, and indigenous forms of activisms.
Lauren O’Neill-Butler is a New York-based independent writer, editor, educator, and a cofounder of November magazine. Her writing has appeared in publications ranging from Art Journal to The New York Times. From 2008 to 2019, she worked as an editor at Artforum. She holds graduate degrees in art history and philosophy and has taught writing and criticism at Hunter College, the New School, and the School of Visual Arts. A book of her collected interviews with women-identified artists will be published by KARMA in 2021.