Antifascist Art Therapy

Abstract

“Everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” I stared at these words on a wheat-pasted poster accompanied by a stenciled portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who wrote them in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail. The Washington, DC–based street artist, who goes by the moniker Absurdly Well, generally illustrates modern politicians and leaders. At this moment in July 2022, though, he offered a historic reference as a contemporary warning. There has been a notable global rise of authoritarian trends—even among democratic societies (Freedom House, 2021). Foreboding signs include voter suppression and election manipulation; disinformation promotions and independent press reductions; populist assertions and migrant castigations; subgroup accusations and economic destitutions; queer defamations and judiciary deprivations; free speech limitations and political opposition eliminations; labor union restraints and civil society constraints. The arts are often casualties, simultaneously censored and refashioned into propaganda under the guise of alternative perspectives (Batycka, 2021). Gesson (2020) posited that people tend to disregard alarms that are deemed pass e: