The exhibition “Artists in war” - at the Rivoli Castle Museum of Contemporary Art from 15 March to 19 November 2023 - presents more than 140 works by 39 authors, created by artists who were or are at war: empathic, suffered works that express unease but also great humanity.
The exhibition develops the theme of war and post-traumatic subjectivity through historical works and new projects by important contemporary artists.
The itinerary begins with a selection of photographic images depicting Torino destroyed by bombing during World War II, flanked by the work of Iri and Toshi Maruki, direct witnesses of the effects of the nuclear explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is followed by the Spanish War of Independence (1808-1814), where Goya dialogues with the Slovenian Anton Zoran Mušič and with Bracha L. Ettinger; then Picasso, Dali, Alberto Burri, Fabio Mauri, Elizabeth (Lee) Miller and the Second World War. We then move on to the Vietnam War and its explication by Dinh Q. Lê and Vu Giang Huong; and finally the Balkan conflict (1990-2001) with the video by the Albanian Anri Sala, and the Middle East by Michael Rakowitz.
The exhibition concludes with echoes of the most recent wars. Unpublished works then for Afghanistan with Rahraw Omarzad (Kabul, 1964) and for Ukraine with Nikita Kadan: originating from scenarios of conflict and profound geopolitical changes, they invite us to reflect on the importance of finding narratives of healing and peace in creative expression.
