(above Defended to Death by Peter Kennard, 1983)
Peter Kennard, born in post-war England, is best known for his photomontages on anti-war subjects.
My favorite image of his is Haywain with Cruise Missiles (1980) which combines famous English landscape painter John Constable's The Hay Wain (1821) with pictures of cruise missiles in the famous rural landscape. The subject the image addresses was a US plan to install cruise missile (armed with nuclear warheads) bases in various locations around Britain. The montage hearkens back to the English love of their countryside and points to the destruction of it by a foreign military base that would be used in global nuclear warfare. It would transform the picturesque countryside to a focal point for mass destruction.
Another of Kennard's most iconic images is the one pictured above, Defended to Death. A gas mask covers the globe with the mouth piece vomiting up an excess of nuclear missiles. The eyes are replaced with an American Star and Stripes on what would be West on a map and its counterpart, the East, replaced with the Soviet Hammer and Sickle. It was updated in 2003 to protest another war the United States was involved in. The update replaces the Soviet Hammer and Sickle with the Union Jack as a protest to the joint US/UK invasion of Iraq.
Hey - cheers for putting up a post on Peter's work. Did you know he's got a new book coming out on Mayday this year. Loads of talks and shows going on around it and gonna try to get him out of London to take it on tour.
ReplyDeleteCheck out the facebook on: http://www.facebook.com/atearth
and he's on Twitter as @at_earth.
And thanks again.
Much appreciated x