War is over!
Peace has not yet begun.
APRIL 05 - SEPTEMBER 17, 2023
Gallerie delle Prigioni, Treviso, IT
War is over!
Peace has not yet begun
Curated by Fondazione Imago Mundi
The group exhibition features works by 14 artists: Francesco Arena, Terry Atkinson, Massimo Bartolini, Eteri Chkadua, Maxim Dondyuk, Harun Farocki, Leon Golub, Alfredo Jaar, Mario Merz, Richard Mosse, Pedro Reyes, Martha Rosler, Sim Chi Yin, Ran Slavin.
Here are presented my works showing the decade of Ukraine’s fight for independence and national identity, which I’ve been documenting since the Maidan revolution of 2013-14. “Culture of Confrontation” photos - printed on banners like those carried by protesters; “Ukraine 2022” photos - printed on the slabs of marble; “Between Life and Death” - photographic installation inside a dark cube.
The selection of artists' works, invites us to look at the apparently concluded conflicts of our time and of the past and to reflect on the profound difference between the mere closing or deadlock of the armed phase of a conflict and the establishment of a true condition of peace. When a war ends, a long period begins, which is usually far from media attention and does not always result in real and lasting peace. Recently, we have seen this happen, for example, in Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where tensions are now being rekindled after decades. From the moment the United States decided to “end the war,” has the violence in Afghanistan ceased?
Wars therefore end, but when does peace begin? Fondazione Imago Mundi proposes that visitors to the Treviso exhibition seek possible answers through an experiential exhibition itinerary that creates a short-circuit between three different ways of interpreting this very difficult theme: a journey through art history is interwoven with works that express themselves in the most contemporary artistic languages and with photographic shots of an explicit documentary nature. In all the works selected by Fondazione Imago Mundi, the drama of a time of peace that has begun, but has not really been accomplished, fully resonates.
In a series of installations, the exhibition presents photographs by Maxim Dondyuk, a Ukrainian photographer who has followed the evolution of the situation in his country from 2013 to the present, and who takes us inside a war that is still ongoing. In parallel, Richard Mosse shows us part of the Infra project, a photographic work developed with Kodak Aerochrome color infrared film, on the forgotten conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the works of Mario Merz, Alfredo Jaar, Terry Atkinson, and Leon Golub, we encounter profound reflections on the premises, dynamics, and consequences of war. Other works, such as those by Martha Rosler and Harun Farocki, investigate how the media have disseminated the images produced by wars.
Two short video essays commissioned by the Foundation and curated by Francesco Spampinato and Fulvia Strano trace a path that reflects on the importance of images created by the computerization of the battlefield in narrating war and shaping the representation of the enemy, and show, through great names in art history, how the narrative of conflicts has often been entrusted to carefully constructed images.