“Keeping Art On The Streets”

The mainstream print media, including The New York Times and art magazines like Artforum, were reluctant to report on artists’ protests against the Vietnam War, with the majority of coverage appearing in underground/alternative newspapers such as the Los Angeles Free Press (Los Angeles), the East Village Other and The New York Element (New York), and Goodbye to All That! (San Diego). This also led groups such as the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC) and Women Artists in Revolution (W.A.R.) to produce their own collections of reports, flyers and correspondence as quickly produced photocopied and stapled publications. In this article, Grace Glueck, who wrote regular art reviews and reports for The New York Times, offered a relatively rare account of radical artists’ actions against the Vietnam War, including a discussion of The New York Element, which as a bi-monthly newspaper on the arts and politics was the antithesis of The New York Times in terms of funding, editorial agenda, and coverage. Glueck became a member of W.A.R. in 1970.