The BANNED & RECOVERED Online Exhibit
"All Quiet on the Western Front" by artist Malcolm Lubliner. Referenced work: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Medium: Mounted archival pigment print.
Artist statement: The montage, composed of photographs of dead and dismembered soldiers, is a pivotal part of the image. It is intended to give viewers a taste of conditions on the front lines during World War I. [The photographs] came from a Brussels-based archive, The Great War in a Different Light. [This archive] contains hundreds of similar photographs taken by photo-journalists who had seemingly few editorial restrictions, although some of these were also banned.
The Gothic German text is an abstracted version of the original title taken from the book’s first edition dust jacket. Translated, the title reads, In the West Nothing New, which was apparently Remarque’s sardonic commentary on how little concern or sympathy the military leadership had for the men in the trenches where life was consistently and pervasively miserable.
The soldier in the drawing has volunteered for service under great social pressure and against his instincts. He is a missionary for his government’s interests, although he will not profit from them. He is both perpetrator and victim, ringmaster and clown. He is neither alive nor dead, and no longer has control over the flames of his volition. A ghost of what might have been a rich life, he is now a scrap of currency in an international gamble.
The woman in the drawing, wise and skeptical of military motives, is silenced by cultural tradition. Burdened by the absurdity of war and the imperatives of home, her memories—real and invented—mingle with dreams and demons.
All Rights Reserved - California Exhibition Resources Alliance
"All Quiet on the Western Front" by artist Malcolm Lubliner. Referenced work: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Medium: Mounted archival pigment print.
Artist statement: The montage, composed of photographs of dead and dismembered soldiers, is a pivotal part of the image. It is intended to give viewers a taste of conditions on the front lines during World War I. [The photographs] came from a Brussels-based archive, The Great War in a Different Light. [This archive] contains hundreds of similar photographs taken by photo-journalists who had seemingly few editorial restrictions, although some of these were also banned.
The Gothic German text is an abstracted version of the original title taken from the book’s first edition dust jacket. Translated, the title reads, In the West Nothing New, which was apparently Remarque’s sardonic commentary on how little concern or sympathy the military leadership had for the men in the trenches where life was consistently and pervasively miserable.
The soldier in the drawing has volunteered for service under great social pressure and against his instincts. He is a missionary for his government’s interests, although he will not profit from them. He is both perpetrator and victim, ringmaster and clown. He is neither alive nor dead, and no longer has control over the flames of his volition. A ghost of what might have been a rich life, he is now a scrap of currency in an international gamble.
The woman in the drawing, wise and skeptical of military motives, is silenced by cultural tradition. Burdened by the absurdity of war and the imperatives of home, her memories—real and invented—mingle with dreams and demons.
All Rights Reserved - California Exhibition Resources Alliance