A New Kind of Democracy? Political and Cultural Developments in the 1960s 439Vietnam War. In Los Angeles, artists including Roy Lichtenstein, who along
with Warhol and Jasper Johns were the best-known Pop Artists on the cul-
tural scene, build a “Tower for Peace,” an 18-yard high tower with politically-
themed paintings on it. When completed, the artists took it down and auc-
tioned it off, then giving the funds to groups involved in civil rights and peace
work. The Tower installation motivated Jasper Johns in 1967 to donate one
of his flags—“US Flag in Complementary Colors,” an orange, green, and black
banner—to groups planning antiwar activities. The same year, about 40 artists,
including Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg, a famous and innovative artist,
put on a show titled “Protest and Hope” at the New School in New York.
The show featured images of Black protestors being threatened with police
dogs. Warhol’s message was obvious—he was denouncing the police and sid-
ing with the protestors. In Chicago in 1968, where local police viciously
attacked antiwar protestors, artists joined the cause for peace and freedom
again. Dozens of artists boycotted the museums and galleries there until
Mayor Richard Daley’s term ended in 1970. Claes Oldenburg, a world-famous
sculptor, drew Daley’s head on a plate as a way of parodying him. Art, to
Warhol and his colleagues, was not just an aesthetic medium to showcase
images of beauty or eloquence, but also a way to sharply confront the often-
ugly political realities of the world.
Some female artists emerged as important figures in the 1960s and brought
feminism into the art world as well, notably Judy Chicago. She created a series
of abstract of abstract paintings that easily were recognized as male and female
sexual organs. “Bigamy” was one of her early works and represented the
death of her husband. Chicago resented being known as a “woman artist,”
believing that art did not need to have a sexual orientation and hoping “some-
day when we all grow up there will be no labels.” Like Warhol and other
Pop artists, she moved beyond paintings, and used fireworks and pyrotechnics
in her work. Later, she more directly addressed issues of women in society,
most famously with her 1974 work The Dinner Party, which remains one of
the most-acclaimed pieces of 20th Century art and has been viewed by over
a million gallery visitors. Her dinner party featured a triangular-shaped table
which suggested images of flowers, butterflies, and especially female genitalia,
and had place settings for 39 famous women in history and another 999
women honored with floor tiles with their names on them. Even more
overtly erotic in creating images of sex was Carolee Schneeman, who shocked