In a new exhibition about incendiary art commenting on current affairs, the work of everyone from Herblock to Kerry James Marshall is brought to light

In 1997, Chicago-based artist Kerry James Marshall made a painting called Memento, showing a black woman holding a vase of flowers at a memorial, which reads: “We Mourn Our Loss.”

An elegy to the civil rights movement, there are the painted faces of Martin Luther KingJr, John F Kennedy and Malcolm X, as well as angels with wings, depicting the group of girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, civil rights activists and the Black Panthers who died between 1959 and 1979.

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Memento is on view as part of Art in Action: Herblock and Fellow Artists Respond to Their Times, which runs until 17 August at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. It features 39 artworks used as a tool for social commentary, from the 17th century to 2017.

“It’s timely, these images today; it brings attention to the role that art can play in society,” said Martha H Kennedy, who co-curated the exhibit with Katherine Blood. “That’s one of the functions of this kind of art; to stimulate people to think, feel and take action in their own lives on issues that they care about. Many of the issues are set back in time, but many can be related to current affairs.”

From civil rights to gender, the Aids crisis and war, 25 artworks are shown alongside 12 drawings by political satirist Herbert L Block (also known as Herblock), a newspaper cartoonist who won three Pulitzer prizes for editorial cartoons he made during the 1940s to 1970s. The artist famously inked cartoons for the Washington Post, covering Watergate, women’s rights and McCarthyism, a term he coined in 1950 in reference to US senator Joseph McCarthy.

“We have everything from prints to etching and freely downloadable Women’s March posters and political art,” said Blood. “The idea here is telling stories directly, getting a voice to the voiceless and empowering the disempowered.”

This exhibit comes at a fitting time considering the recent surge of socially-engaged art under the Trump administration, from Mexican border wall murals to political satire exhibits and brick walls as sculptures.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Herblock – Riddle: How many missiles does it take to put out all the light bulbs?, 1983. Photograph: Library of Congress/Herbert L. Block Collection

“It gives us an opportunity to highlight issues that were important to Herblock, issues that caused him a great deal of concern are issues that are ongoing and still with us,” said Kennedy. “This exhibition could be considered a call and response between Herblock’s cartoons and more recent work by today’s artists.”

There is Alexander Calder’s cold war-era artwork supporting the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy in 1975, which pulls a quote from John F Kennedy’s United Nations general assembly speech from 1961: “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.”

There is also a photograph of Pablo Picasso seated before his famed painting Guernica, the famed piece of protest art depicting carnage from the Spanish civil war. The portrait of the artist was taken by Polish photojournalist David Seymour in 1937.

More recent artworks include Lebanese-American artist Helen Zughaib’s tribute to Syrian refugees who have drowned in Unfinished Journeys. It shows a pair of children’s shoes among a vast ocean, in reference to Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea during the Syrian refugee crisis.

“This is the artist’s way of trying to personalize this own tragedy,” said Blood. “It’s a way to bring it down to a human, personable level.”

There is also a poster by Colombian-American artist Jessica Sabogal, who first designed her Women are Perfect poster for the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, which was freely downloadable for protesters. This artwork is an iconic image of “a vision of female identity that is revolutionary and powerful, brave and beautiful”, according to the artist.

It’s shown alongside a 1994 cartoon by Herblock after the Pentagon created a policy that restricted women soldiers from combatting on the ground. It depicts a military officer telling a woman: “However, you can continue to fight for equal employment opportunities, equal advancement, equal pay …” a condescending take on gender parity.

“There are lots of somber issues ongoing in this show,” said Kennedy. “With a military officer saying to a woman: ‘You can still fight for equal employment and equal pay,’ it’s an example of Herblock’s dry sense of humor. He was known for his strong opinions and his independent voice.”

The exhibit also features Herblock’s famous portrait of Richard Nixon from 1972, during the height of the former president’s attack on the free press for their critical reporting on his presidency. It’s entitled You Just Don’t Have Quite the Right Slant.

“The Herblock cartoons shows Richard Nixon dramatically highlighting how he was obsessed the media was covering him and the measures he was trying to take to control the message,” said Kennedy. “We’re hoping these images will urge viewers to stop and think about the issues that are being commented on, and think for themselves.”