The first open-call exhibition presented by Washington's new Center for Contemporary Political Art (CCPArt), invited artists from all fifty states and Puerto Rico to submit original work, challenging the artists to respond with art as powerful as the times are dangerous, to help Americans understand what's at stake - and why it's their duty to vote - in the November 2018 midterm elections.

With more than 500 submissions by almost 300 artists, CCPArt hopes that the Defining exhibition will lead to a redefinition of the role artists play in our society; identify the country's leading practitioners of political art; and demonstrate why political art should be recognized as a valued genre of American art in the twenty-first century.