Expert praise for Art and Upheaval
"For some readers, this book could be used as a how-to manual for organizing a variety of arts projects responding to crisis, but for a much broader audience, Art and Upheaval will serve to validate the importance of artists working outside artistic institutions. In Cleveland's words, these artists "… are doing this to rally or to bring order, to educate and inspire, to entertain, to heal, but most of all, to tell the story—the hidden story, the story denied."
—John Kreidler, Grantmakers in the Arts Reader: Volume 20, No. 1, Spring 2009
"Each of the groups Cleveland profiles started small, but grew to provide essential safe space where communities could come together and heal. Community art offered a way forward: a chance to acknowledge and confront painful histories, to begin to resolve current conflicts, and to imagine a different kind of future."
—Brooke Jarvis, Yes! Magazine
"Cleveland gets down to gritty detail by documenting the censorship, government-sponsored arson, and institutional apathy that have threatened these outposts, as well as the specific historic moments that sparked them. All told, these are success stories against the odds. Art and Upheaval makes clear that where "monetary compensations, legal wrangling, formal apologies, condolences, and all other cultural frameworks often surrounding disasters and tragedies" stand little chance of repairing the spirit in the wake of killing unrest, public art just might."
—Josie Rawson, Public Art Review
"Cleveland’s writing about artists in far corners pulling together and creating moral centres for healing and political reconciliation is sometimes ponderous but couldn’t be more relevant now that we have a global leader in Barack Obama who has made community-organising the centrepiece of his presidency. It may be that we have outlived the long period of ethical (and aesthetic) neutrality in our culture, now that politics is finally catching up with art."
—Suzi Gablik, Resurgence Magazine
"The book is superbly written. After a brief introduction explaining his journey, Cleveland jumps into the artists’ stories. The chapters interweave the larger political dynamics with the personal narratives of the artists, providing background on the family and cultural contexts that helped shape their identity and actions. All too often stories of social-change actors concentrate on the actions of activists and are devoid of the larger political and social context. Cleveland does a masterful job of linking the narratives across the personal, community and societal levels."
—Craig Zelizer, CommunityArtsNetwork
