My project focuses on New York based artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz. Born in 1934, Ortiz was part of an international group of artists such as Argentine Kenneth Kemble and London based Gustav Metzger who conceptualized destruction in art as a means to address violence in life. My dissertation will examine how Ortiz intersects with other artists who worked in the United States to decry the ways in which art is often removed from its historical conditions and social struggles and sought to reinsert it into the lives of those within local communities. I consider his destruction performances alongside other performative and participatory projects that took place in alternative art spaces in New York in the 1960s such as Manipulations at Judson Church in 1967. Furthermore, my project investigates Ortiz’s role as an activist with the Art Worker’s Coalition and founder of El Museo to demonstrate the intersections of his political actions with his performed destructions. Thanks to the CLACLS travel fellowship, I will be able to visit Raphael Montañez Ortiz’s archives at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center in Los Angeles.