Results: Art With A Conscience

A conscious artist uses his or her craft to help and to heal, as a full expression of the rights, the wrongs, and injustices in the world . Consciousness means a great many things to many different people. For the artists, their work signifies something beyond the canvas: a living force. Their work transcends the material and "the self" connecting us to the highest purpose of art. Certainly their work has aesthetic value; but above all else, its cultural value is priceless. One of the most famous art installations is "Shoes on the Danube Promenade" by Can Togay and Gyula Pauer. During WWII, Jews in Budapest were brought to the edge of the Danube, ordered to remove their shoes, and shot, falling into the water below. 60 pairs of iron shoes now line the river's bank, a ghostly memorial to the victims. Have you ever visited this site, and do you find art like this emotional or disturbing?

Perhaps the most famous of all socially conscious artists, Banksy is a contemporary British street artist and activist who, despite his international fame, has maintained an anonymous identity. Aimed as a form of cultural criticism, the artist often targets established social and political agendas with his illustrations produced with stencils and spray paint in cities such as New Orleans, New York, and Paris. His latest work, titled "If you don't mask - you don't get," is set in London's Underground. A video posted on his Instagram account shows a man, believed to be the enigmatic artist, disguised as a member of the cleaning staff and wearing a hazmat suit. He boards the train and instructs some of the passengers to move away. He proceeds to stencil rats on the inside of a train carriage. Some rats are wearing face masks or using them as parachutes. Another appears to be sneezing, and another is holding a bottle of hand sanitizer. At the end of the video, he sprays the words, "I get lockdown, but I get up again," riffing off Chumbawamba's 1997 hit "Tubthumping." The London transit system has since removed the art, saying it violates their "strict anti-graffiti policy." Do you consider his art significant social conscious art or graffiti?

Are you familiar with any of these socially conscious arts and their works?

Are you familiar with any of these artists and their works?