Wartist - Connecting War and the Arts

Marissa Roth: One Person Crying – Women and War (Berlin)

Sara Duvall mit einem Foto ihres Sohnes Aaron Reed, getötet im Irak, Chillicothe, Ohio 2005 (© Marissa Roth)

From 8 March until 3 April 2013, Berlin-based Willy-Brandt-Haus presents the exhibition One Person Crying: Women and War with photos by Marissa Roth. Since 1984, the Pulitzer Prize laureate (born in 1957 in Los Angeles) is dealing with this issue: back then, she travelled to the Yugoslav homeland of her Jewish grandparents who had been murdered in 1942 by Hungarian Fascists. In 1988, she was assigned by Los Angeles Times to portray Afghan women refugees. The subject remained crucial for her work: One Person Crying: Women and War addresses the effects of war on women within their respective societies. Continue reading

Robert M. Edsel: Monuments Men (lecture, Berlin/Potsdam)

On 20 and 21 March 2013, Robert M. Edsel presents his book “The Monuments Men” and its thrilling background story in lectures with subsequent talks in Berlin and Potsdam. During the Second World War, the Nazis organised the “greatest theft in history” and stole countless art works from the occupied territories in Europe. The allied special unit from the “Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program” searched for these art treasures. The author Robert M. Edsel is dealing intensively with this art theft and in 2007, he founded the “Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art”. His book “The Monuments Men” (2009) has already been translated into 19 languages, is recently available in German and is the background for the homonymous film directed by George Clooney with Clooney himself, Cate Blanchett, Daniel Craig, Matt Damon, Jean Dujardin and John Goodman that will be made this year.

Continue reading “Robert M. Edsel: Monuments Men (lecture, Berlin/Potsdam)”

Martin Bayer: grounded

Photographer Martin Bayer (educated at Lette-Verein Berlin) addresses in his series grounded¹ of decommissioned military aircraft the perception of history and war, but also the aestheticisation of weapons. Detached from their historic context, the planes appear as objects or even sculptural. Neither the country of provenance, nor their operating period are discernible: was it an “attacker” or a “defender”, regarding our own classifications? Each war produces history and its own myths – grounded puts them in the background, making room for the viewers’ own associations.

grounded #4, C-print on alu-dibond, 50x75 cm (© 2012 Martin Bayer)

crashed, having a grounding (aircraft, pilot), fixed, earthed, but also sensible, justified ↩

Lisa Glauer: “…later, she will build nuclear vessels” (OKK Berlin)

From 22 February until 3 March 2013, Berlin-based gallery Organ kritischer Kunst (OKK, organ of critical arts) presents the exhibition “…später baut sie Atomschiffe” (…later, she will build nuclear vessels” with works by Lisa Glauer. The exhibition will be opened with the performance “experimental production of evidence by visualisation”. Lisa Glauer uses breast milk as material for her works. This project is part of her PhD dissertation on Art and Design at Bauhaus University Weimar.

Two Years Later – Arab Spring Under Fire? (BICC Bonn)

From 21 February until 30 April 2013, Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) presents photos by Ahmed Khalifa. On the occasion of the opening, a panel discussion on “Two Years Later – Arab Spring Under Fire?”will be held. Working at BICC as a peace researcher, Khalifa was taking photos and documenting the Arab Spring and the Egyptian presidential elections.

Nach der Schlacht, Nähe Tahrir-Platz, Kairo, November 2011 (© Ahmed Khalifa)

Bryan Adams: Exposed (Dusseldorf)

Private Karl Hinett (© 2011 Bryan Adams)

From 2 February until 22 May 2013, NRW-Forum Düsseldorf presents the photo exhibition Exposed with works by Bryan Adams, mostly known as musician. Many of the some 150 prints shown are glamour portraits of actors and fellow musicians. As maximum disruption to all those immaculate stars, Adams’s portraits of British war invalids are shown, too: a new series of impressive portraits of humans marked by war. Protheses replace the former limbs, monstrous scars refer to pain and injuries. According to Adams, these pictures are his way “to show the legacy of war”.

2 + 2: Phoenix Chemnitz – A Peace Day Exhibition (Chemnitzer Künstlerbund)

On 12 February 2013, the exhibition “2 + 2: Phoenix Chemnitz” will open on the premises of Chemnitzer Künstlerbund (association of Chemnitz’s artists). In this established format, two local and two external artists meet to address a specific subject. This time, the Chemnitz Friedenstag (Chemnitz Peace Day) is this issue: on 5 March 1945, Chemnitz was severly damaged – more than 2,100 people died in this bombing. How can this central event be remembered? What has contemporary art to say on war? Peggy Albrecht (* 1974) and Rose-Marie Güttler (* 1978) are the two local artists in this show, while Jan Bejšovec (* 1975, Konfliktstoff) and Martin Bayer (* 1971, Wartist) from Berlin provide external perspectives. Continue reading

Otto Herrmann: The Damned (E.M.Remarque-Friedenszentrum, Osnabrück)

On 31 Januar 2013, the exhibition “Die Verdammten” (The Damned) with lithographs by Otto Herrmann (1899-1995) will be opened at Erich Maria Remarque-Friedenszentrum (E.M.Remarque Peace Centre) in Osnabrück. The cycle was made in the late 1940s and thus immediately after the Second World War. The artist was inspired by Theodor Plievier’s novel “Stalingrad”. 70years after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, the majority of these works will finally be presented to the public.

Otto Herrmann: Im Schutz der Toten (© Otto & Maria Herrmann Stiftung)

Harun Farocki: Serious Games I-IV (Videoart at Midnight, Berlin)

On Friday 25 January 2013 at 2400h, the project Videoart at Midnight presents the four video installations Serious Games I-IV (2010) by the German documentary filmmaker and media artist Harun Farocki. Since some four years, the collector Ivo Wessel and the gallery owner Olaf Stüber present video art once a month at the cinema Kino Babylon in Berlin-Mitte. The four works by Farocki address training methods by the U.S. military and computer-based support of soldiers affected by post-traumatic stress disorder. Passing between war games, war simulations and real war seems to become increasingly fluent.

Steve McCurry: In the Flow of Time (Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg)

From 19 January until 16 June 2013, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg shows the exhibition “In the Flow of Time – Photographs from Asia 1980-2011” with pictures by Steve McCurry. Thus, the colourful work by the US photographer (* 1950) will be presented in Germany for the very first time. The exhibition consists of 115 images by the Magnum photographer from countries such as Afghanistan, India, Cambodia, Kuwait, China or Nepal: “I see it was the vibrant colour of Asia that taught me to see and write in light”. While quite many of his photos appear to be arranged, he refuses this method and solely takes photos of moments happening, on which the exhibition’s title is referring to.