Downtown artists were slow to produce anti-war art despite signing petitions

Evidence

The No!art group aside, protest art was rare. “End Your Silence,” an open letter in opposition to the war, was published in the April 18, 1965, New York Times with over 500 signatories. Among the more respectable names were several prominent Beats, downtown art stars and fellow travelers: John Cage, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Gelber, Nat Hentoff, Dick Higgins, Donald Judd, Tuli Kupferberg, Jackson Mac Low, Peter Orlovsky, Carolee Schneemann. Susan Sontag, A. B. Spellman, Mark di Suvero, Stan VanDerBeek, and Israel Young. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 791