SAM
DURANT
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These images are from
an anti-nuclear weapons
demonstration in Germany
(where the artist lives)
that took place in 1961,
(the year of his birth.)
The artist asks “How is it
possible that nuclear bombs
are still with us? With the
risk of annihilation ever
greater!” Die Bombe Muss
Weg Wir Wollen Leben (Ban
the Bomb We Want to Live!)
will remain relevant as
long as the existence of
nuclear weapons continues to
threaten the survival of the
world.
Sam Durant (USA, 1961)
is an interdisciplinary
artist whose work engages a
variety of social, political
and cultural issues. His
methodology is researchbased
but with an emphasis
on social engagement, often
working with communities and
groups in collaborative and
performative formations. His
most recent public work
Untitled (drone) (2021) was
the second commission for
the High Line Plinth in New
York. Durant is based in
Berlin and is a Professor
at the Staatliche Akademie
der Bildenden Künste in
Stuttgart.
Organized by Estudio Pedro Reyes
in collaboration with ICAN
ARTISTS AGAINST THE BOMB is an exhibition of posters that call for universal nuclear disarmament. Each made by a different artist, the group comprises historical and newly
commissioned works that detail a cultural history of disarmament movements and evidence the diversity of ways in which artists have expressed the need to ban the bomb. ARTISTS AGAINST THE BOMB is designed for maximum agility and economic effectiveness, relying on a black and white palette both for its impact and ease o reproduction. We asked artists to ensure their works can exist on a variety of supports, ephemera such as posters, postcards, billboards, banners, flags, t-shirts and social media posts, as we aspire to achieve the widest possible circulation of this message.
ARTISTS AGAINST THE BOMB presents the works of foundational conceptual artists Art & Language; pop hero, Keith Haring; legendary feminists, Guerrilla Girls; performance artists Regina José Galindo and Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, as well
as eminent sculptors Magdalena Abakanowicz and Isamu Noguchi. It also features indelible photographs by Robert Del Tredici and Ken Domon alongside protest graphics from social movements such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), founded in 1958 and still active; the epic Peace Squadron and Visual Artists Against Nuclear Arms (VAANA); and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Additionally, it examines how stories are told, from the theater of Bread and Puppet to films like Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and Marguerite Duras / Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour, to an unexpected survey of literature, from an early
anticipation of an atomic bomb, first envisioned by H.G. Wells in 1918, to the viscera spoken word poetry of Jayne Cortez.
ARTISTS AGAINST THE BOMB, organized by Estudio Pedro Reyes in collaboration with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), is presented on the occasion of the Second Meeting of State Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) held at the United Nations in 2023.
To organize en exhibition of ARTISTS AGAINST THE BOMB please contact curatorial assistant Verana Codina.
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