ESPERANTO

Group progress using plaster bandages for collective portrait project

Theme: Peace ✌🏻

Martha Rosler “Cleaning the Drapes” from the series “House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home”

“Rosler conceived Bringing the War Home during a time of increased intervention in Vietnam by the United States military. Splicing together pictures of Vietnamese citizens maimed in the war, published in Life magazine, with images of the homes of affluent Americans culled from the pages of House Beautiful, Rosler made literal the description of the conflict as the "living-room war," so called in the USA because the news of ongoing carnage in Southeast Asia filtered into tranquil American homes through television reports. By urging viewers to reconsider the "here" and "there" of the world picture, these activist photomontages reveal the extent to which a collective experience of war is shaped by media images.“ Rosler wanted to bring the war home. As the Vietnam War escalated half a world away, she wanted Americans to recognize their proximity to it, and perhaps even their complicity with it.

Martha Rosler is an American artist. She is a conceptual artist who works in photography and photo text, video, installation, sculpture, and performance, as well as writing about art and culture. Rosler's work is centered on everyday life and the public sphere, often with an eye to women's experience. 

“My art is a communicative act, a form of an utterance, a way to open a conversation.” - Martha Rosler

Sources: 

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/150123

Leon Golub “Vietnam II” 

Over three metres high and more than twelve metres long, this massive work is Golub’s largest painting and arguably one of his most ambitious. It belongs to a series of three large-scale works on the subject of the Vietnam War the artist made between 1972 and 1974. Golub had adopted an active stance against the Vietnam conflict for almost a decade at the time these works were made; he joined the anti-war group Artists and Writers Protest on his return to the United States in 1964 after living for several years in Europe.

The composition of Vietnam II is polarised. On the left side of the painting are three uniformed American soldiers in front of an armoured car. The aggression on the faces of the American soldiers is countered by the combination of horror and stoicism in the expressions of the Vietnamese figures, particularly a young boy positioned in the foreground of the image whose face acts as the focal point for the right side of the composition. He stares directly out of the picture, implicating the viewer in the action.

Leon Golub (January 23, 1922 – August 8, 2004) was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, and his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950.

The Vietnam War was the second longest war in the history of the US, second to the war in Afghanistan, and was an extremely unpopular war to the American population at the time. As a result of the war, there was almost 60,000 American deaths and an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths. There are still many questions about the war, whether it was a smart situation to enter and the reasoning for it. In the end, the US failed to accomplish their goal of defeating the communist regime and once the US left the region, the country fell to the Viet Minh, exactly what the US was there to prevent. There were many key figures in the war. On the Vietnamese side, there was Ho Chi Minh, who was the communist leader of North Vietnam until he died in 1969, and Vo Nguyen Giap, who was the North Vietnamese general who planned the Tet and Easter Offensives. On the American side, there was General Westmoreland, who was the commander of US forces in Vietnam from 1964-1968, and General Abrahms who was the commander of US forces in Vietnam from 1968-1973. Lastly, there were four US presidents during the Vietnam War. Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961), John F. Kennedy (1961-1963), Lyndon Johnson (1963 – 1969), and Richard Nixon (1969-1974). Under Johnson, US troops first entered Vietnam, and they finally left after a hard fought war under Nixon. 

Paul Theks, Warrior's Leg, (1966–1967). Wax, metal, leather, and paint; in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Kim Jones, "Mudman Structure (large)," 1974

Kim Jones is a contemporary artist who was born in 1944 in San Bernardino, CA. He now lives in New York City creating more amazing pieces. He went to Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA in 1969 to 1971 and California Institute of Arts, Los Angeles, CA in 1964 to 1966.