On November 5, millions of voters across the United States will head to the polls to cast ballots for the country’s next president. The election is a tight race between former president Donald Trump, who was indicted for the fourth time in May and whose rallies are an echo chamber of racist remarks and false conspiracy theories, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who took up the reins of the Democratic party when current President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and whose support of Israel and fracking has led to scrutiny from Arab-American and progressive voters. Hundreds of state, county, and local election races will also be on the ballot tomorrow.
To inspire voter participation, artists are using their skills and talents to remind people of the importance of exercising their democratic rights — from a reprinting of ACT UP’s historic 1988 Election Day poster to new artworks by contemporary figures like Shepard Fairey and Caris Reid.
Los Angeles-based painter Caris Reid painted a floral representation of the word “vote” for a campaign organized by Art for Change and Michelle Obama’s organization When We All Vote.
“This is a pivotal election year, with LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and climate change issues all on the ballot,” Reid told Hyperallergic, adding that she incorporated “whimsical and ethereal aesthetic” elements that are typically found in her work.
Shepard Fairey and Carrie Mae Weems are co-chairs of Artists for Democracy, a campaign organized by People For the American Way (PFAW), founded by the late television writer and activist Norman Lear. Fairey’s call-to-vote poster, featuring Lear in his signature fedora hat, is on sale for $450; the proceeds will benefit voter turnout efforts.
Alongside a portrait of Harris by Los Angeles-based visual artist Victoria Cassinova and a signed print by Hank Willis Thomas, Weems contributed a decorative plate featuring the inscription: “Not Again. Not on my watch!!”
Last week, Weems gave Harris’s campaign permission to use four photos from her 1990 Kitchen Table series in a political ad campaign called “Kamala’s Table.”
Also created for PFAW’s Artists for Democracy campaign, Beverly McIver’s “VOTE Black Beauty” (2024), which centers on a Black woman covered in floral elements, swaps the “T” in “VOTE” with an anatomical illustration of a uterus in a reference to the reproductive rights and healthcare protections currently at stake in this year’s post-Roe v. Wade election.
“I firmly believe in the essential pursuit of equality for all, regardless of race, creed, or gender,” McIver said in a statement about the work. “My sincere hope is that this [Artists for Democracy] campaign serves as a powerful call to action, motivating everyone to participate in the democratic process by casting their votes.”
Issued in advance of the 1988 election between Republican Vice President George H. W. Bush and Democratic Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis and reposted this morning by the NYC AIDS Memorial, a poster by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was part of the group’s historic “Silence = Death” campaign, which challenged activists to head to the polls for reasons related to healthcare protections, AIDS treatment research, and queer civil rights.
The group’s signature pink triangle is set against a backdrop of a star-spangled banner and small print at the bottom reading, “Your vote is a weapon . . . use it. . . we are at war.”
