At a surprise New York Film Festival performance last night, rock legend Bruce Springsteen publicly expressed concern for the political climate in the country, saying, quote, we're living through particularly dangerous times.

But as the Trump administration increasingly targets free speech and the arts, musicians and artists of all kinds are facing a difficult decision, whether

to speak out or keep their heads down.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown looks at some of what is and isn't happening for

our series, Art in Action, exploring the intersection of art and democracy as part of our

Canvas coverage. I'm wanting to represent the time that we're living in and not look away.

Patrick Martinez is a multimedia artist born, trained, and making art in Los Angeles,

who started telling the story of the America he lives in well before Donald Trump's 2016 election.

A lot of my work deals with police brutality, police murder.

I think that my upbringing informs my choices.

When I choose to paint the landscape, I take objects and materials that are from areas that are, you know, discounted when I produce work,

a lot of that messaging tends to put me in a light that people will label me an activist,

but I'm more just kind of paying attention.

These days, Martinez's work is exhibited in major museums, including the Whitney in New York and the Los Angeles

Museum of Contemporary Art.

But when President Trump ordered ice raids in his community and the National Guard to Los Angeles,

Martinez responded, photographing his neon works, printing them on corrugated plastic,

and handing them out at protests.

It's self-preservation to be making this work, right?

But it also shows you what I thought about what was happening in these times.

And me sharing it helps people cope with everything that they're kind of going through right now. And if they don't have the

words to kind of come up with, they can use my work as a placeholder. But while some individual

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