SEAN
DOWER
In this poster, Sean Dower
revisits the character of Zou Zou
the cabaret clown and connects
the philosophy and politics of the
era of the original nuclear arms
race to the present day. Dower
discovered Zou Zou in 1993 when
he found a videotape of a 1980’s
performance by the clown on an
Amsterdam Market. The
performance made references to
particular socio - political issues of
the era , including the nuclear
arms race and space travel. The
central image on the poster
features a 1993 photo of Dower
impers onating Zou Zou, using
props and make - up. The text is
drawn from the lyrics of the
gospel hymn, When the Saints Go
Marching In , whose tune is
played by Zou Zou on a prop
during his performance. The
lyrics of this early 1900s gospel
hymn are inspired by the Book of
Revelation, which warns of the
final judgment or ‘end of days’
associated with the apocalypse.
The text style references the
democratic use of stencil s in
political activism and counter
culture.
Sean Dower (born 1965) began
making live performances in the
early 1980s as part of the UK
‘industrial’ music scene. He went
on to study sculpture, film and
photography and continues to
incorporate sound and
pe rformance into his practice .
Dower has exhibited his work
internationally since the early
1990s.
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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