revised edition (see below)
People say that Muses are silent during the war. But I don't see it this way. Yes, art will not help to hide from the bombs, and will not return the murdered loved one. But art is for the living. Art at such moments arises as a reaction to horror, misunderstanding, and hopelessness.
For example, artists were not silent during the Vietnam War but created. There were directly speaking works. Figurative, showing death in its manifestation.
Leon Golub’s “Vietnam II,” 1973. El realismo crítico de Leon Golub, en el Reina Sofía [online] At: https://www.abc.es/cultura/arte/abcm-realismo-critico-leon-golub-201105040000_noticia.html (Accessed 12.12.2022)
Another kind of figurativeness mixed with pop art revealed the vices of society, its silence and tolerance for the actions of politicians.
Martha Rosler, “Cleaning the Drapes,” from the series “House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home,” circa 1967-72, photomontage [online] At: https://www.wikiart.org/en/martha-rosler/cleaning-the-drapes-from-the-series-house-beautiful-bringing-the-war-home-1972 (Accessed 12.12.2022)
Abstract reactions representing violence, murders and everything else that goes along with it. But here, as always with abstraction, we need text or some kind of starting point. In this case, it is the title of the work, which sheds light on the meaning of the art object.
Dan Flavin’s “monument 4 for those who have been killed in ambush (to P.K. who reminded me about death),” 1966 [online] At: https://www.diaart.org/collection/collection/flavin-dan-monument-4-for-those-who-have-been-killed-in-ambush-to-p-k-who-reminded-me-about-death-1966-1980-615 (Accessed 12.12.2022)
Performance is an experience in action, where, as with figurative work mixed with pop art, problems are highlighted and defects are indicated.
“The Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG) – founded in 1969 by the New Yorker artists Jon Hendricks and Jean Toche – was the starting point for a trend to politicized performative art. They acted against the rigidity of art institutions, escpecially the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York. With the Rockefeller family being part of the museum’s board on the one hand and benefiting from the weapon industry of the Vietnam war on the other, the Guerilla Art Action Group saw the mainstream art and cultural institutions as “part of that power structure that was bringing us the war, that was bringing the inequality of genders, of race and so on in this country, of rich against poor…” (Hendricks).” Guerrilla Art Action Group January 9, 2015 Katharina Schmidt [online] At: http://www.inenart.eu/?p=16947 (Accessed 12.12.2022)
Or here is another example of seemingly simple interviews with refugees. But these are all upside-down lives, children deprived of their childhood, adults forever endowed with the psychological trauma of war.
“Vietnamese-born American artist Tiffany Chung … had presented only one component of her complex show, a set of video interviews with an older generation of Vietnam refugees to the United States” The New York Times, CRITIC’S PICK. Vietnam, Through the Eyes of Artists [online] At: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/arts/design/vietnam-war-american-art-review-smithsonian.html (Accessed 12.12.2022)
And here is the reaction to current events in Ukraine. Banksy arrived at the scene of the conflict and painted children and adults with their daily lives, accustomed to war, on the destroyed walls of houses and buildings.
CNN, Borodianka, which was hit particularly hard by Russian airstrikes in the first few weeks of the conflict, was the first site in Ukraine where Banksy confirmed new street art. Credit: Ed Ram/Getty Images [online] At: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/banksy-ukraine-murals/index.html (Accessed 12.12.2022)
Given this task, political practice, I can't think of anything else but war. It seems logical to me to oppose the war with peace. Contrast the destroyed with the created, ugliness with beauty.
Probably again my tutor will say that I am good at modelling in Photoshop, but I didn't do the work in reality - I do not pretend to play a hero and go to war to do artwork there. The task is to spread different information on social networks.
This is a project of how and with what thoughts I created the work all this year. This is the opposition of different realities, this is pain and misunderstanding. The surrealism of what is happening.
I only use photos from official sources the ones I could download publicly. To avoid accusations of fakes or fictitious information.
"We'll drop bombs on you all!" these are the words of my _______ addressed to me. Therefore, these mockups are my imagination of the consequences of this desire of one of my closest people. I want to see what happens when a bomb flew into my apartment. There are my works hanging on the walls, photographs of relatives, books, my husband works in the next room... and then a bomb hits my house.
original photo from:
United Nations. UNDP Ukraine/Oleksandr Ratushnia The remains of a bombed out bedroom in Borodianka, Kyiv. [online] At: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/11/1130657 (Accessed 12.12.2022)
original photo from:
MARHANETS, UKRAINE - AUGUST 10: A view of the damage after missile and artillery strikes by Russian ... [+]ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES Forbes. [online] At: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katyasoldak/2022/08/10/wednesday-august-10-russias-war-on-ukraine-news-and-information-from-ukraine/ (Accessed 12.12.2022)
original photo from:
The theater after a bombing in Mariupol, Ukraine, in mid-March.ALEXEI ALEXANDROV/ASSOCIATED PRESS The Wall Street Journal. [online] At: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/ukraine-russia-war-nato-summit-madrid-news/card/amnesty-says-russia-deliberately-targeted-mariupol-theater-making-the-attack-a-war-crime-Qtv7EuTAF1CxIDp6nlV9 (Accessed 12.12.2022)
original photo from:
A man stands in front of a residential building damaged in shelling in Ukraine. AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Forbes. [online] At: https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/08/02/war-has-caused-108-billion-in-damage-to-ukraines-infrastructure-study-finds/?sh=5eb381c823e5 (Accessed 12.12.2022)
original photo from:
Residential building in Kyiv destroyed by a Russian missile [online] At: https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-61273673 (Accessed 16.12.2022)
Photo chronicle of the war in Ukraine - 01 April, Nikolai Permyakov 04/01/202221 April 2022 [online] At: https://www.dw.com/ru/fotohronika-vojny-v-ukraine-01-aprelja/a-61326289 (Accessed 16.12.2022)
original photo from:
199th day of the war between Russia and Ukraine: main events, Daniil Sotnikov, 09/10/202210 September 2022 [online] At: https://www.dw.com/ru/199j-den-vojny-rossii-protiv-ukrainy-glavnye-sobytia/a-63080632 (Accessed 16.12.2022)
original photo from:
Destroyed buildings following an attack in central Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 27.Photographer: Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images [online] At: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-28/ukraine-latest-blinken-eyes-prisoner-swap-as-kyiv-region-hit?leadSource=uverify%20wall (Accessed 26.12.2022)
original photo from:
Photo chronicle of the war in Ukraine - 01 April Nikolai Permyakov 04/01/202221 April 2022 [online] At: https://www.dw.com/ru/fotohronika-vojny-v-ukraine-01-aprelja/a-61326289 (Accessed 26.12.2022)
Will there be an explanation for this?
“Everything is not so clear!”
“There was no other way.”
“I was the one who set the bombs on my house.”
“They kill the Nazis.”
“It all started America.”
“Russians cannot steal and kill.”
“Attacks are made only on military targets.”
“These are all fakes, there is no truth during the war. ”
…
With this war, the biggest I've lost is my mom. Not because something happened to her, but because at one moment she became a stranger to me. The way I perceived the most precious person I had, was unconditional love.
And it turns out that I had conditions?! This gap in consciousness between the certainty that nothing can be different and the fact that everything is turned upside down, is the most painful and difficult thing for me to understand. I express this absurdity and confusion in these photographs.
Whatever they say on TV and in other media, how can one support the attack of another independent state?
My friends say that people who support this war should be taken as bewitched. These people only look at one source of information controlled by the government. Even if they manage to see an alternative point of view, it seems to them that this is not true, since this enchantment happened many years ago, and not in one day.
In 1994, there was a massacre of local Tutsis in Rwanda. Since the level of genocide varied across the country, this caught the attention of a researcher, and in 2014, Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott identified the reason for this - radio broadcasting area. Through one official wave, the government called for the killing of residents, disclosed the names and addresses of people they considered inappropriate. The fact is that due to the hilly terrain in Rwanda, radio broadcasts did not cover all parts of the country. And where the reception was clear, many more people were killed than where there was simply no broadcast. It proved the influence of the mass media on the aggression of people.
I thought about what can resist to this? Counter propaganda? Spreading flowers and love? Is there a way out of this already innate aggression?
The idea doesn't stop here! The proposed photos are a simulation that in real life should take place in real conditions! Ideally, I need to go to Ukraine to survive the upheavals, find strength in myself and make new paper works there. Place them temporarily in the destroyed premises. Contrasting colour and dullness of the destroyed newly created and killed provoke and attracts. Yes, unfortunately, one of the causes of the war was information. Distorted and evil information. To get out of this horror, new communication is needed. If even one person from my Russian subscribers thinks about reality in Ukraine which I showed in my post with art, this is already one victory of the good.
Also, this project can be implemented in Russia (where I cannot now enter for my radical statements). For example, in my hometown of Moscow, it would be timely and appropriate to recycle a propaganda newspaper and present it in a different capacity. Such direct reworking of information can set an example for people. To give a lesson in the search for willpower in working with old, dirty material and to process this negativity in its physical and informational manifestation on its own. This topic will be continued and rethought by me in a parallel project.
Bibliography and references
1. The New York Times, CRITIC’S PICK. Vietnam, Through the Eyes of Artists [online] At: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/arts/design/vietnam-war-american-art-review-smithsonian.html (Accessed 12.12.2022)
2. Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide. Yanagizawa-Drott, D. 2014. “Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics (August 21). Harvard University At: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/13457754/RwandaDYD.pdf (Accessed 26.12.2022)
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