Permanent War Exhibition

The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston has a show currently on display called Permanent War: The Age of Global Conflict. We could not help but be intrigued particularly because one of our favorites artists, Richard Mosse, is featured in the show. What we found was a chilling experience in the exhibition. Curator Pamela Allara has brought together amazing works of art that create a visceral reaction to the exhibition. If you will be in Boston before March 7th, this exhibition is worth seeing.

Here, the excellent exhibition introduction from the catalogue:

If one is to judge from the artistic record provided by museums, human history has been synonymous with constant warfare. Images of armed men marching forth to defend a given regime or battle against it are ubiquitous. In the century since World War I, called ‘the war to end all wars,’ battles have raged on around the globe. Countries continue to devote countless resources and employ military force to establish political dominance, promote religious ideals, and impose their systems of government. In response, as the one remaining superpower, the United States has based its economy on maintaining military dominance. However, the goals of our military interventions remain vague, as the many conflicts surfacing world-wide rarely have clear lines of demarcation between right and wrong, totalitarianism, or freedom. In addition, due to increasing mechanization and specularization, the very nature of warfare has changed, further challenging the concept of a ‘just war.’