Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection [Five Print Series on the Horrors of War]


The most significant achievement of the Richard Harris Collection is that it brings together, for the first time, in one collection, five great series of prints representing the horrors of war. Created between 1633 and 2007, these works of art provide an unprecedented opportunity to see and explore the relationship between the visions of the artists. The nuanced views of war before you, were created by men on the losing side of many of the battles depicted. Jacques Callot witnessed the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants in his "Miseries and Misfortunes of War" [1633]. Franciso Goya created "Disasters of War" [1810-20] after the French took over the Spanish government, struggled to control the Spanish people, and fought the British and their allies - Spain and Portugal - during the Peninsula War. German artist Otto Dix found in World War I against the British, French and American, and recorded his experiences six years later in "The War" [1924]. At the end of 1990s, British brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman worked on their "Disasters of War" series [1999]. By the end of the 20th century, the horrors of war were immediately visible via television, online and print media, and many artists like Chapman Brothers exhibited works of art in protest. Sandow Birk finished "The Depravisties of War" in 2007, detailing the struggles of the American and allied armies following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.


Series One..
Jacques Callot, "Miseries and Misfortunes of War" [1632-1633]..
Thirty Years War between Catholic France and Protestant Germany..
The print installation comprises two groups:
Le Petite a set of seven smaller prints and
Les Grandes, 17 etching plus one frontis piece.
For more, click here..


Jacques Callot's prints from "Miseries and Misfortunes of War" are small in scale, but their influence on later artists has been profound. The print installation comprises two groups: Le Petite a set of seven smaller prints and Les Grandes, 17 etching plus one frontis piece. These etchings are, in many ways, the centerpiece of Harris Collection. These prints brought real events into the artists representation of war. Callot's record of the crimes soldiers committed against the civilian population is horrifying, but the fate of soldiers caught and punished - either by the authorities or by local population they had victimized - was equally terrible. Goya was influenced by Callot's series and few European or American artists explore the subject of war without taking Miseries and Misfortunes of War into account.


Series Two..
Francisco Goya, "The Disasters of War" [1810-1820]..
Spanish struggle against the French army under Napolean Bonaparte, who invaded Spain in 1808..
80 etchings and aquatints..
They were not published until 1863, 35 years after Goya's death.
For more, click here..


Francisco Goya's 80 etchings and aquatints, "the Disasters of War" [1810-20] were made in the aftermath of the French invasion of Spain during the Napoleonic Wars, but were not published in Goya's lifetime. They are powerful expressions of what war looked like in the city streets and countryside of Spain. For Goya, the disasters wrought by war were not the battles fought between soldiers and led by generals. Instead, disaster issues from war's ability to dehumanize everyone involved in the struggle: soldiers from both sides and the civilian population. The horror of Goya's experiences of war lies in the way in which it transformed people..


Series Three..
Otto Dix, "The War" [1924]..
51 etchings..
Otto Dix created this series of etching "The War", six years after the end of World War I. Unlike Jacques Callot and Francisco Goya, Dix had experienced war as a soldier, fighting for the Germans against French, British and American forces. He had volunteered and served as a machine gunnen in the trenches..
For more, click here..

"Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas" [The War /1924]

Otto Dix's experience were unlike those of Goya or Callot because he was a combatant in World War I. His 51 prints, "the War" [1924], were made six years after the end of battle, but the ability of these prints to convey the horrors of the "Great War" is undiminished. New methods of fighting, such as trench warfare, along with new technology and weapons, gave rise to new horrors in modern combat. Unlike Callot and Goya, who represented war from distance, the figures and events in Dix's prints are depicted at close range..


Series Four..
Chapman Brothers, "Disasters of War" [1999]..
Their print series "The Disasters of War", owes a great debt to Francisco Goya's series of the same name, created from 1810-20. The Chapman Brothers series of prints look at war in general, rather than a specific conflict..
For more, click here..


In their 83 etchings, titled "Disasters of War" [1999] Jake and Dinos Chapman reveal their longstanding fascination with Goya's "Disasters of War". As artists the brothers often employ shocking imagery to challenge their viewres to think about familiar things in new ways. In this sense, war introduces a profound challenge because it is horrifying and ugly already. In addition, their audience has largely been desensitized to violence by exposure to real and imagined images of war through the media. The Chapman Brothers' reinterpretation of Goya employs absurd, funny, sexual, frightening images that are true to the spirit of Goya, without needing to copy them. Influenced by Goya, they explore the ugly, base human urges that lead men into wars, yet they add a psychological speculation to the topic, contemplating how sexual urges feed the horrors of war..


Series Five..
Sandow Birk, "The Depravities of War" [2006-07]..
A series of 15 large scale woodblock prints inspired by the series of etchings by Jacques Callot's "The Miseries of War" in the 17th century, which in turn were the inspiration for Goya's "The Disasters of War" in the 19th century.
For more, click here..


"The Depravities of War" series by Sandow Birk continues the tradition of artistic critique of was by examining the US-led Iraq War. Finished in 2007, the surprizing scale of these prints gives tham power and significance not usually found in images of this war, especially when experienced through the lens of the media. Birk recreates compositions from the Callot's series, presente parallel events from the Thirty Yaers War and the Iraq War, and discovers new horrors of battle, always stressing the fundamentally unchanged nature of war, 375 years after Callot..

RELATED LINKS..
Jacques Callot:"Miseries and Misfortunes of War" [1632-1633]..
Francisco Goya, "The Disasters of War" [1810-1820]..
Otto Dix, "The War" [1924]..
Chapman Brothers, "Disasters of War" [1999]..
Sandow Birk, "The Depravities of War" [2006-07]..

Morbid Curiosity: Richard Harris Collection
Location: Exhibit Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center..
January 28 – July 8, 2012
Curator: Lucas Cowan
Co-Curator: Debra Purden
Director of Exhibitions: Dr. Elizabeth Lee Kelly..
Presented by Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events in partnership with the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture..

RELATED LINKS..
Morbid Curiosity: Richard Harris Collection..

Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection [Jacques Callot : "The Miseries and Misfortunes of War" [1632-33]]



The Miseries and Misfortunes of War..
Jacques Callot..
Jacques Callot created these etchings, "The Miseries and Misfortunes of War"from 1632 to 1633, looking for the first time of the experiences of the common people during war. Callot lived through the Thirty Years War, a religious war between France and Germany, and he created this series of prints to explore the new aspects of was following the French invasion of his homeland, the Duchy of Lorraine. Earlier images were made for kings and generals and celebrated victories and heroic deeds. Callot's story begins when soldiers are recruited and engage in battle. Disciplines breaks down, however, and the soldiers begin to torture and steal from local people, and to attack churches and convents. Some soldiers are caught and punished by their superior officers, but more horrifying is the revenge the villagers take when they catch the persecutors. After the war, veterans aare shown destitutes and forced to beg for charities, from their former victims. Only a few soldiers receive accolades from the government for their service.

Callot's prints were widely collected. Their popularity undermined official government propaganda, which paid very little attention to the cost of war for civilian population or for soldiers whom the government no longer needed.






Morbid Curiosity: Richard Harris Collection
Location: Exhibit Room, at the Chicago Cultural Center..
January 28 – July 8, 2012
Curator: Lucas Cowan
Co-Curator: Debra Purden
Director of Exhibitions: Dr. Elizabeth Lee Kelly..
Presented by Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events in partnership with the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture..

Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection [Francisco Goya: "The Disasters of War" [1810-1820]]



Francisco Goya..
The Disasters of War, 1810-1820..
Francisco Goya created "The Disasters of War" from 1810-1820. These 80 etchings and aquatints show scenes from the Spanish struggle against the French army under Napolean Bonaparte, who invaded Spain in 1808. When Napolean tried to install his brother Joseph Bonaparte, as King of Spain, the Spanish fought back, eventually aided by the British and the Portugese. Goya's prints explore the horrifying consequences of this kind of guerilla warfare, and the famine that followed it. The French army is often shown by Goya as disorganized force, leaderless and cruel. However, the most surprizing innovation in his series is the emphasis Goya placed on war's power to dehumanize everyone involved. the brutality of the two armies was equaled by the fury of the Spanish people. In some of the panels in this series such as, "And they are like wild beasts", it is shocking to realize that the "beasts" are not the army but Spanish women fiercely fighting to protect themselves and their children from a group of French soldiers.

The prints were a private project for Goya. His public work at the time consisted of painting portraits of military men and politicians."The Disasters of War" prints were not published until many years after the artist's death"..



"And they are like wild beasts", it is shocking to realize that the "beasts" are not the army but Spanish women fiercely fighting to protect themselves and their children from a group of French soldiers.





Wikipedia informs.. ..
The scenes are singularly disturbing, sometimes macabre in their depiction of battlefield horror, and represent an outraged conscience in the face of death and destruction. They were not published until 1863, 35 years after his death. It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticising both the French and restored Bourbons..

The first 47 plates in the series focus on incidents from the war and show the consequences of the conflict on individual soldiers and civilians. The middle series (plates 48 to 64) record the effects of the famine that hit Madrid in 1811–12, before the city was liberated from the French. The final 17 reflect the bitter disappointment of liberals when the restored Bourbon monarchy, encouraged by the Catholic hierarchy, rejected the Spanish Constitution of 1812 and opposed both state and religious reform. Since their first publication, Goya's scenes of atrocities, starvation, degradation and humiliation have been described as the "prodigious flowering of rage..

Morbid Curiosity: Richard Harris Collection
Location: Exhibit Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center..
January 28 – July 8, 2012
Curator: Lucas Cowan
Co-Curator: Debra Purden
Director of Exhibitions: Dr. Elizabeth Lee Kelly..
Presented by Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events in partnership with the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture..

RELATED LINKS..
Morbid Curiosity: Richard Harris Collection..

Monday, January 30, 2012

Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection [Otto Dix: The War [1924]]



Otto Dix..
The War [1924]..
Otto Dix created this series of etching "The War" [1924] six years after the end of World War I. Unlike Jacques Callot and Francisco Goya, Dix had experienced war as a soldier, fighting for the Germans against French, British and American forces. He had volunteered and served as a machine gunnen in the trenches. This direct experience of war is revealed in scenes that are oddly framed and seen up close. Soldiers are shown wounded and dead, srinking and dancing, or upside down and broken into pieces. Dix explores the squalor of war fought in muddy trenches dug into the ground, and the terror of waepons like mustard gas. 'Storm Trooper Advancing under Gas" depicts soldiers in gas masks, which give their wearer a skeletal appearance. In dix's imagery, war doesnt transform only the people involved, but the land as well. In "Field of shell craters near Dontrien lit up by flares", he recors the preternaturally empty and threatening landscapes created by trench warfare. Dix allows the viewer nointellectual distance from wars, suffering, terror and confusion"...




RELATED LINKS..
Morbid Curiosity: Richard Harris Collection..

Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection [Chapman Brothers: "The Disasters of War" [1999]]



Chapman Brothers..
The Disasters of War [1999]

Brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman are part of of movement in British art called Shock Art. Their print series from 1999, "The Disasters of War", owes a great debt to Francisco Goya's series of the same name, created from 1810-20. The Chapman Brothers series oof prints look at war in general, rather than a specific conflict. The Chapman's share Goya's deep concern with the victims of war, but their imagery is quite different. While some of the Chapman prints mimic Goya's prints or sections of them, others are radically different, updating Goya's sense of horror with modern imagery and sexual allusions. The Chapman infuse their bizzare world with eruptions of swastiks, genitals and broken body parts to challenge their viewers. These startling oimages make it clear that it has become difficult to shock a modern Western audience with images of violence. European and American society have been desensitized to war's violence by television news, movies, video games and magazine photos..





RELATED LINKS..
Morbid Curiosity: Richard Harris Collection..

Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection [Sandow Birk: "The Depravities of War" [2006-07]]




Sandow Birk..
The Depravities of War..
From 2006 to 2007, Sandow Birk created "The Depravities of War", portraying details of the US-led Iraq War. Working in California, Birk was inspired by Jacques Callot's, "Miseries and Misfortunes of War", a print from 1633 drawing on the Thirty Year War between Catholic France and Protestant Germany. In his series Birk maintain Callot's focus on the civilian victims of the conflict and the unfortunate fates of many of the veterans. Middle Eastern landscapes and architecture replace French and German countryside, office park architecture substitute for cobbled European streets, and veteran with wheelchairs and walkers replace Callot's crippled soldiers. For Birk, the overall patterns of war and death is constant even if the specific details change..

Round-the-clock media coverage has made the details of operations in Iraq inescapable. disturbing images of prisons and executions have shaped public debate about the occupation in a way that is new to world history. The immense size of Birk's images recognizes that reality. He has made them difficult to ignore. The prints pose the question, "do the citizens share responsibility for actions taken by their own government in this action?" ..


Title page for Depravities of War Portfolio, 2007..


Obsession, 2007..


Preparation, 2007..


Invasion, 2007..


Incursion, 2007


Destruction, 2007..


Desecration, 2007..


Occupation, 2007..


Detention, 2007..


Degradation, 2007..


Humiliation, 2007..


Investigation, 2007..


Insurrection, 2007..


Execution, 2007..



Repercussion, 2007..

RELATED LINKS..
Morbid Curiosity: Richard Harris Collection..