Take This Hammer: Art + Media Activism from the Bay Area, installation view, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Left: Oree Originol. Justice for Our Lives, 2014-ongoing. Right: Cat Brooks with Black Lives Matter. Anti Police-Terror Project, ‘Tasha,’ 2015. Courtesy of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Photo: Charlie Villyard.

The command within the exhibition title Take This Hammer: Art + Media Activism from the Bay Area, on view at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) through August 14, 2016, is an incendiary offering. It is a suggestion filled with implicit actions that could go in any direction, or perhaps multiple directions at the same time: smash, build, repair. Curated by Christian L. Frock, the exhibition itself evokes a similarly complicated empowerment—a sort of optimism fueled by grief, anger, and the fear that change will not occur fast enough. Derived from the title of a documentary (on view in the lobby) featuring James Baldwin on the topic of Black life in San Francisco in the 1960s, Take This Hammer as a phrase and exhibition directs viewers to implicate themselves in contemporary social issues.

The exhibition provides a wide sampling of work by eighteen Bay Area–based artists and activists who work individually or collectively. Like the region itself, it’s a diverse grouping—both in terms of points of view and strategies of political intervention. Seeing some of the pieces or documents in a museum context raises questions about whether they would be better served being wheat-pasted onto walls or held up high while marching through the streets. Other works more clearly feel as though they “belong” in a gallery site, like the video pieces and paintings. Others initially or continuously exist online, their inclusion here a remove from that already-expansive viewing context of the internet. Regardless of the context each piece apparently belongs to, Take This Hammer uses its institutional and educational frame to create a comprehensive experience of political work being produced today. Indeed, YBCA—with its current marketing campaign that includes phrases like “the center for the art of doing something about it,” as proudly asserted by banners outside the building—lays claim to the idea that museums should foster political awareness in the community.

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Modified promotional image for Levi’s Station to Station project, 2013; organized by artist Doug Aitken

Earlier this month a so-called public art extravaganza featuring a changing cast of “artists, musicians and creative pioneers” made its way across the country by rail. Station to Station, as it was called, was a project by multi-media artist Doug Aitken and made possible by Levi’s, whose corporate sponsorship has quietly supported an astonishing number of recent public art projects. The list of “participants” in Station to Station was an impressive array of creative personalities—too many to list here—including Patti Smith, Ernesto Neto, James Turrell, Alice Waters, Theaster Gates, Olafur Eliasson, and Nam June Paik, among many others. The train started in New York with stops in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Kansas City, Santa Fe, Winslow, Barstow, and Los Angeles, before it came to a stop in Oakland last Saturday, September 28, 2013. While the marketing folks (as quoted in the New York Times) at Levi’s might consider this experiment a success based on the envy of other brands, this singular criterion means nothing in contemporary art or to the people who actually care about it. Herewith are some of the things I hated most about Station to Station, culled from a long list.

The train itself was to be a moving kinetic light sculpture, additionally the “programming” was designed to bring together widely known creative figures with local legends from each municipality drawing from art, music, food, literature and film. Oakland was promised performances by Dan Deacon, Lia Ices, No Age, Savages and several other musicians, along with art by Kenneth Anger, Urs Fischer, Liz Glynn, Evan Holm, Carsten Höller and Ernesto Neto—all staged in and around Oakland’s historic landmark train station designed circa 1912 in the Beaux Arts style by renowned architect Jarvis Hunt. “Moving images” by Yayoi Kusama, Raymond Pettibon, and Ryan Trecartin, among others, were to be featured along with “printed matter” by a host of incredible artists, including Karen Kiliminik, Catherine Opie and Ed Ruscha. In the weeks leading up to the event, all of the venues nation-wide were listed as “sold out” online; tickets were around $30 a pop.

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Promotional image for Levi’s Station to Station project, 2013; organized by artist Doug Aitken

Over a period of three weeks this month, a public art extravaganza featuring a changing cast of “artists, musicians and creative pioneers” will make its way across the country by rail. Station to Station, as it is called, is a project by multi-media artist Doug Aitken and made possible by Levi’s, whose corporate sponsorship has quietly supported a number of recent public art projects. The list of participants in Station to Station is an impressive array of creative personalities — too many to list here — including Patti Smith, Ernesto Neto, James Turrell, Alice Waters, Theaster Gates, Olafur Eliasson, and Nam June Paik, among many others. The train started in New York with stops in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Santa Fe, Winslow, Barstow, and Los Angeles along the way — this magical mystery tour will end in Oakland on September 28. As of this writing, tickets are still available for the concluding event in Oakland’s historic 16th Street Train Station.

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Francisco Goya. The Disasters of War (Plate 39 – heroic feat! With dead men!), 1810-1820; etching.

When examining a history of artistic response to social injustice, across a spectrum of political issues, most key works are propelled by visibility. This is the hybrid condition of art and activism—whereas the art community might debate the value of documentation, especially with live performance, activism necessitates it. Before reproductions, static objects were visible to a limited audience; indeed, the impetus for printmaking was to reach a wide public audience. Photography extended this reach and the Internet has extended it further. The Internet affords us a somewhat, though not entirely democratic public platform by virtue of reach; access to the Internet still reflects a prevailing wealth disparity and, further, such access is ultimately controlled by private enterprise. Despite these limitations, it enables access that is potentially global in scope. This expansive communication potential is a vital resource to artists who confront social inequity to bear witness, to generate dialog and to cultivate change.

Consider here three important historic examples, not just for the issues of their time, but for the examples they set as forms of social record. Also noteworthy is how these works moved through public channels and how they still resonate in today’s society. Each provides critical benchmarks to survey the tactics of politically engaged artists throughout recent history. They are also important models to learn from and build upon moving forward.

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