Identity Politics

The identity politics art movement rose to prominence between the 1960s and 1980s. It followed a series of pioneering political movements concerning the diversity and visual representation of personal identity. As tensions arose from the marginalization of certain socio-political and cultural groups in the USA and across Europe, art quickly became a vehicle of social emancipation and empowerment. 

Galvanized by the 1960s Black Civil Rights Movement in the USA, identity politics refers to a series of artists and exhibitions which sought to honor the experiences of historically oppressed groups. Those belonging to the movement revolutionized the depiction of personal identity in art, vehemently protested the discrimination against certain races, genders and sexualities, and ushered in a new age of celebratory, diversely representative, and often deeply subversive art.

Champions of the identity politics movement included Robert Mapplethorpe, Lorna Simpson, Judy Chicago, Martha Rosler, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The proliferation of identity politics was radical and widespread: artists celebrated queer spaces, interrogated racial biases, and drove forth the second wave of feminist efforts. See our selection of works inspired by the identity politics movements.