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According to popular attribution, Che Guevara once said that the first duty of the revolutionary is to evade capture. Artists who attempt to create critical or noncompliant artwork in societies that repress their freedom or attempt to co-opt them make many tactical decisions to “evade capture.” Those decisions and concomitant actions engender social spaces in which artists can continue to work in spite of the attempts to oppress them. Among the general tactics used by nonconformist actors are silence, conditional or absolute, when publication would threaten their freedom; exile or flight from the repressive social context; and various forms of cunning and imaginative "arrangements" that create conditions for free artistic expression, if only on an ad hoc basis.

This session discusses the subversive strategies used by noncompliant artists in four totalitarian societies. The papers address the historical significance of various art practices created under political oppression and examine distinctive acts of resistance through art that arise from such contexts. The array of tactics and the specific social factors they address, when carefully analyzed and described, serve to highlight the nature, historical importance, and subversive social efficacy of noncompliant gestures and creations. This discussion of art and survival contributes to broader conversations about the range of possibilities for both creative activity and political engagement in the arts.