The Four Freedoms were the mantra of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II. Today, For Freedoms is an activist organization that provides visionary tools to communities to rally around campaigns and activations using public venues across the United States. Ahead of the 2024 election, the group has released For Freedoms: Where Do We Go From Here? by Hank Willis Thomas, Eric Gottesman, Michelle Woo, Wyatt Gallery and Taylor Brock, the first monograph surveying the hundreds of nationwide billboards they’ve erected.
Featuring more than 550 artist billboards created between 2016 and 2023, it marks one of the largest public creative collaborations in American history. By appropriating an advertising medium normally used for political campaigning, these billboards showcase how art can urge communities into greater participation and action, and foster nuanced discourse.
Organized chronologically, the book is divided into seven sections that commemorate the organization’s socially prescient campaigns: Make America Great Again; Bring People into Play; Visionary, Not Reactionary; Provoke Bigger Questions; Build, Do Not Destroy; Listen Until We Hear; and Bridge Binaries. Featured artists include Derrick Adams, Sadie Barnett, Gina Belafonte, Sanford Biggers, Cassils, Shepard Fairey, Theaster Gates, Jim Goldberg, Shyama Golden and Tanya Selvaratnam, Guerrilla Girls, Jeffrey Gibson, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, Rashid Johnson, JR, Christine Sun Kim, Jesse Krimes, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan, Marilyn Minter, Koyoltzinlti Miranda-Rivadeneira, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Gordon Parks, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Maggie Rogers, Kamal Sinclair and Takaaki Okada, Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Willis, Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Ai Weiwei, among many more. The book also surveys important partnerships with organizations and movements over the years including AAPI Solidarity, Landback.Art, INDIGENA, NDN Collective, Times Square Arts, XQ Institute, and brands including Converse.
