Castello di Rivoli's 'Artists in War' Showcases 149 Works Responding to Conflict

The Castello di Rivoli in Turin presents 'Artisti in guerra' (Artists in War), curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Marianna Vecellio, featuring 149 works by 39 artists that directly engage with war experiences. The exhibition opens with Francisco Goya's 83 etchings from 'The Disasters of War' (1863 edition), mostly hidden in a display case, while Zoran Mušič's drawings and paintings of Dachau horrors hang nearby. Lee Miller's photographs of extermination camps echo Mušič's graphic testimonies. Pablo Picasso's 'Head of a Woman' (1942) is linked to Guernica, and Alberto Burri's two 'Sacchi' (1954) gain new meaning alongside his early painting 'Texas' (1945), depicting a POW camp. The Indochina War is represented by 70 works from Viet-Cong and North Vietnamese artists assembled by Dinh Q. Lê, who fled South Vietnam. Bracha L. Ettinger's dreamlike paintings reflect her service in the 1967 Six-Day War. Michael Rakowitz's video 'The Ballad of Special Ops Cody' (2017) uses a toy soldier in stop-motion animation at a Chicago museum with Mesopotamian artifacts. Rahraw Omarzad contributes hypnotic videos and six large panels painted with dynamite explosions. The current Ukraine war is addressed by Nikita Kadan's 'The Shelter II' (2023), a site-specific installation featuring a black monochrome panel below a wall of real books used as barricades, referencing Bucha atrocities.