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Art Workers Coalition (1969-70)[edit | edit source]

The Art Workers Coalition (AWC) was a collection of artists, dealers, museum workers, and other workers in the art industry; including Carl Andre, Lucy Lippard, Gregory Battcock, Hans Haacke, Tom Lloyd, Takis, Wen-Ying Tsi, John Perreault, and May Stevens.

On October 15, 1969, the AWC organized a successful "Moratorium of Art to End the War in Vietnam." The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Jewish Museum, and a large number of commercial art galleries closed for the day. The Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim Museum did not comply. Under pressure from the AWC, the Metropolitan postponed the opening of its American painting and sculpture show scheduled for that day, and the Guggenheim got picketed.

Fueled by the success of the Moratorium, and the outrage when president Nixon Announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia, a proposal for another New York art Strike was soon formed, headed by Robert Morris and Poppy Johnson, Morris's second wife. Johnson had a profound artistic presence; she was a founding member of the Guerilla Art Action Group, a founder of the Ad Hoc Women Artists Committee, and an artistic pioneer of Earth Day. Johnson also had works displayed in prominent facilities such as the MoMa and Whitney museums, and the California Institute of Arts' galleries. Her role as an activist in politics, feminism, and environmentalism is ubiquitous throughout both history and her artwork.

The group called upon all museums in New York to close on May 22, 1970 as part of the protests against the Vietnam War. They specifically focused on closing the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, and the Jewish and Whitney museums. Consequently, the Whitney and the Jewish Museum both closed, while the Guggenheim and MoMa remained open, but offered free admission, even though MoMa’s director John Hightower was reluctant to do so. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, however, refused to close. This led to picketing by an offshoot, headed by Robert Morris and Poppy Johnson, under the name Art Strike Against Racism, War, and Oppression. The picketing was largely successful; protestors blocked the entrance to the museum, and distributed anti-war leaflets. Their actions ultimately cut the museum’s usual attendance of four thousand to six thousand people, whom only entered after the museum was forced to open its side doors.

In addition to the picketing, Morris removed some of his works exhibited in the Whitney early as part of the protest, while the artists Richard Artschwager, Mel Bochner, Daniel Buren, Craig Kauffman, Sol LeWitt, and Lawrence Weiner who were involved the Unseen Walls exhibition in the Jewish Museum with Morris agreed to shut down their exhibit, eventually compromising with the museum to close the exhibition early. These actions took place before the organization of the boycotting, and were largely responsible for galvanizing the movement.

The group extended its antiwar protests and protests against the killing of student protesters by the Police at Jackson, Augusta, and Kent by calling for a boycott of the American Pavilion at the 1970 Venice Biennale. The group organized a counter-biennial in New York. This was then criticized by the Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation organization (directed by Faith Ringgold and joined by Michele Wallace) for only including the work of the white male artists that would have already been featured in the regular biennial. Consequently, the counter-biennial then accepted works from women and people of color. The WSABAL group also influenced the Ad Hoc Women Artists, conducted by Lucy Lippard and Poppy Johnson. These two groups both had a demand of 50 percent women artist representation. Their protests led to the inclusion of black women artists Barbara Chase Riboud and Bettye Saar in the next Whitney Biennial.