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Guernica Lives
60" x 50"
2004
Artist's Collection
Sometimes events of the day shake me out of my art-historical reverie. A Reuters photo in the NY times showing"collateral damage" in the Middle East evoked memories of the most famous 20th century painting about the atrocities of war , Picasso's Guernica. He painted it in a rage over the 1937 senseless bombing of the innocents in a Basque village by German planes in support of General Franco.
The father and dead boy fit all too well into Guernica. Did Picasso's masterpiece have any power to change things? Did the poster with the famous photo of a naked girl running from a napalm attack in Vietnam have an effect in shortening that war? I applaud the artists who use their art to try to effect change. I considered doing a series framing today's atrocities within Guernica, but I found the photo research too depressing to continue.
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