Thematically much of the collection speaks to issues of representation and collective memory, confronting systems of power, and recorded history, with constructed versions of race, ancestry, migration, gender, sexuality, and class that warrant contestation.

Many of the artists engage their work as visual and social activism, aiming to provoke viewers into civic participation, if not full-blown activism. Throughout the Clark Collection, history, politics, identity, and popular culture are disrupted by artists who create with eclectic materials in mediums spanning the visual arts.