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Back to Design and Architecture

Design and Architecture

Art and politics

There's been an explosion of expression in reaction to the Trump administration, from searing comedy to pink pussyhats. So how much of a role do artists play in protesting -- or promoting a regime? Joes Segal is a chief curator at The Wende Museum, the collection of Eastern Bloc art and printed ephemera from the Cold War years.

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By Frances Anderton • Feb 21, 2017 • 1 min read

There's been an explosion of expression in reaction to the Trump administration, from searing comedy to pink pussyhats. So how much of a role do artists play in protesting -- or promoting a regime? Joes Segal is a chief curator at The Wende Museum, the collection of Eastern Bloc art and printed ephemera from the Cold War years.

He's published a book of essays, Art and Politics: Between Purity and Propaganda, in which he looks at a century of art movements and how they became weapons in the fights over totalitarianism and fascism, communism and capitalism. And Segal asks, is President Trump doing what artists have done in the past: "creating an alternative reality?"

  • https://images.ctfassets.net/2658fe8gbo8o/AvYox6VuEgcxpd20Xo9d3/769bca4fbf97bf022190f4813812c1e2/new-default.jpg?h=250

    Frances Anderton

    architecture critic and author

  • https://images.ctfassets.net/2658fe8gbo8o/AvYox6VuEgcxpd20Xo9d3/769bca4fbf97bf022190f4813812c1e2/new-default.jpg?h=250

    Frances Anderton

    architecture critic and author

  • https://images.ctfassets.net/2658fe8gbo8o/AvYox6VuEgcxpd20Xo9d3/769bca4fbf97bf022190f4813812c1e2/new-default.jpg?h=250

    Avishay Artsy

    Producer, DnA: Design and Architecture

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    Joes Segal

    Utrecht University / Wende Museum

    Culture
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