Consuming War

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Filed under: Media Literacy, Political Pranks

Consuming War
An exhibition curated by Barbara Koenen
November 4 to January 20, 2008
Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell Avenue
Chicago, IL 60615

Proposed work by Burtonwood & Holmes, 2007Featuring works by Lynda Barry, Wafaa Bilal, Mary Brogger, Adam Brooks, Burtonwood & Holmes, Michael Hernandez de Luna, Fred Holland, Harold Mendez, Michael Rakowitz, Ellen Rothenberg, Edra Soto, Paula White and Dolores Wilber.


Focusing on the U.S. conflict in the Middle East over the past 10 years, Consuming War addresses the ways the American media and consumer culture have manipulated and influenced our perceptions of war, often turning it into a spectacle for American consumption. While war is an underlying theme in all the works, each addresses the concept of war, and our relationship to it, from a variety of angles, creating pieces that range from political cartoons to sculptures that recreate the archeological artifacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq and large suspended papier mâché bombs made from sale advertisements. Timely in its subject matter, Consuming War offers an innovative platform in which the complex and multifarious connections between war, capitalism, American consumer culture, and our everyday lives can be re-situated and critically examined.

Related links:

  • Listen to WBEZ”™s interview with the curator about the exhibition.
  • Domestic Tension by Wafaa Bilal
  • For more information, visit the Hyde Park Art Center Web site
  • image: Proposed work by Burtonwood & Holmes, 2007
    via Art Threat