Coordinated by
Pedro Reyes Studios
in collaboration with




A collective poster project where every participating artist nominates two more artists, as an allegory of a creative chain reaction. The project is a collection of urgent messages calling for universal nuclear disarmament.

In 2023, the nine global nuclear powers, The United States, China, Russia, France, UK, Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan are expanding their nuclear arsenals. We are entering a silent new arms race in which trillions of dollars are being spent. At this exact moment, there are open threats of thermonuclear war, as well as nuclear tests being carried out. The world is dangerously close to a nuclear disaster.

In opposition to this trend, the ICAN established a landmark global agreement to ban nuclear weapons, known officially as the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons in 2017. It entered into force in January 2021 and has been signed by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations.

Nuclear weapons have always been immoral; they are now illegal in the 92 signatory countries.

We know the countries that have yet to sign the nuclear ban treaty — the ones with the power to kill us all — will be the last to join. In nations hijacked by their military-industrial complexes, we can’t expect change to come from the top. Unless we exert public pressure worldwide, we are likely to experience nuclear war in our lifetime.

The good news is: we have done this in the past. Art and activism pressured governments in the 60s, 70s and 80s to dramatically reduce nuclear arsenals. An example of this was the 1 million protestors that gathered in Central Park in 1982, at the peak of the anti-nuclear movement. In 2020 there were approximately 13,400 nuclear weapons worldwide, compared with 63,632 in 1985, the highpoint for the global nuclear weapon stockpile.

Artists Against The Bomb was first publicly introduced in Vienna at the MST1, the first Meeting of States Parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the closing project will be presented in November of 2023 at the Second Meeting of State Parties MST2 at the United Nations in New York City.

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Coordinated by Estudio Pedro Reyes
in collaboration with ICAN






ARTISTS AGAINST THE BOMB is a collection of urgent messages calling for universal nuclear disarmament. This series of posters designed by international artists can be printed locally and exhibited anywhere in the world. Participating artists grant permission for these images to be used to spread awareness about the imminent threat of nuclear war and the urgent need to abolish all nuclear weapons. You can download these artworks here at this website and print them anywhere you choose to add to the global call for nuclear disarmament.

In 2023, the nine global nuclear powers – the United States, China, Russia, France, UK, Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan – are expanding their nuclear arsenals. We are entering a silent new arms race on which trillions of dollars are being spent. At this exact moment, there are open threats of thermonuclear war, as well as nuclear tests being carried out. The world is dangerously close to a nuclear disaster.

In 2017 ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), winners of the 2017 Peace Nobel Prize, established a landmark global agreement to ban nuclear weapons, known officially as the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons. It entered into force in January 2021 and has been signed by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations.

Nuclear weapons have always been immoral; they are now illegal.

We know the countries that have yet to sign the nuclear ban treaty — the ones with the power to kill us all — will not be the first to join. In nations hijacked by their military-industrial complexes, we can’t expect change to come from the top. Unless we exert public pressure worldwide, we are likely to experience nuclear war in our lifetime.

The good news is we have done this in the past. Art and activism have pressured governments to dramatically reduce nuclear arsenals. An example of this was the 1 million protestors that gathered in Central Park in 1982, at the peak of the anti-nuclear movement. In 2020 there were approximately 13,400 nuclear weapons worldwide, compared with 63,632 in 1985, the high point for the global nuclear weapon stockpile.

ARTISTS AGAINST THE BOMB invites artists from all over the world to participate, and each participating artist then nominates two other artists to take part in hopes of sparking a chain reaction. Part of the inspiration for this project comes from Gerald Holtom, the designer of the original logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He chose not to trademark his creation so that it could be freely shared in support of the campaign, and that logo is now what we know as the Peace Sign.  

The poster series was first publicly introduced in Vienna at the MST1, first Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW. Afterward, it was presented at the Køs Museum in Copenhagen, on billboards across the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, at Festival Ceremonia in Mexico City, and a growing number of other venues. The closing project will be presented in November of 2023 at the MST2, at the Visitor Lobby inside the United Nations in New York City.


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MAGDALENA
ABAKANOWICZ




Born in Falenty, Poland in June 1930 Magdalena was a sculptor and a leading artist of the tapestry school. Her originality lies in the transfer of her knowledge of upholstery to sculpture from some experiments carried out in the 1960s.

THOMAS
HIRSCHHORN




Over the years, Hirschhorn (Switzerland, 1957) has created more than seventy works in public space, questioning the autonomy, the authorship and resistance of a work of art, and asserting the power of art to touch and transform the other. “I want to use art as a tool to establish a contact with the Other – this is a necessity – and I am convinced that the only possible contact with the Other happens “One to One”, as equal.” Through his experience of working in public space, Hirschhorn has developed his own guidelines of “Presence and Production” in being present and producing on location during the full course of his projects. “To be ‘present’ and to ‘produce’ means to make a physical statement, here and now. I believe that only through presence—my presence —and only through production —my production— can my work have an impact in public space or at a public location.”

Photo: Tobias Valentin



MONICA
BONVICINI




Monica is a conceptual artist, contemporary sculptor and a scholar living in Berlin. She emerged as a visual artist and began exhibiting internationally in the 1990s. Her multifaceted practice investigates the relationship between architecture, power structures, gender, and space.

KARL 
HOLMQVIST





Karl Holmqvist is an artist whose primary material is language. His inventive re-renderings of words and phrases take various forms including artist’s books, posters, wall drawings, sculpture, videos and live performances. Borrowing from generic types of speech or written word, ranging from common sayings to literary references, from popular music to political activism, Holmqvist repositions these sampled fragments in new contexts, allowing for ambiguity and double meanings to emerge.

(courtesy of Camden Arts Centre)

 

THEO
DEUTINGER







Theo Deutinger (1971) is an architect, writer and designer. He is the founder and head of The Department (TD), a practice that combines architecture with research, visualization and artistic thinking. With TD he works at all scales from global planning, spatial master plans, architecture to graphic and curatorial work. Deutinger is known for his theoretical writings on the transformation of European urban culture, and his socio-cultural studies such as the “Handbook of Tyranny.” Theo Deutinger lives and works in Austria.