The Art of Protest
The Peace Tower erected in Chicago's Cultural Center was designed as an emblem of the fury and frustration over the war in Iraq. But the stirring images hung from the monument have gained little notice.
By Ciara Sampaio
An oversized silver swing-set frame towers 20 feet in the air in the middle of the brightly lit Chicago Room of the Chicago Cultural Center. Panels of artwork – 150 two-by-two-foot images – dangle from its steel bars like floating jewels in a Tiffany display window. Only these "jewels" are not very aesthetically pleasing at first blush. They are grim and gruesome. But that’s what’s really interesting, what causes you to linger and closely examine every inch of the sculpture. The individual pieces represent a wide range of media and styles. The images are at once bold and disturbing. They represent scenes of war and death, and evoke feelings ranging from sadness to anger.
They are part of a collaborative art installation known as the Peace Tower. Artists, military personnel, documentary photojournalists and veterans were all invited to contribute art in any medium as long as it stayed within the two by two foot size guideline, and photographs to the project, organized by Mark di Suvero, an internationally renowned sculptor. More than 150 artists answered di Suvero’s call.
The Peace Tower was designed to spark dialogue about the Iraq War. It was to be the art community’s outcry about the invasion and the horror it has visited on all involved. The images are stark and startling.
"LET’S TALK IMMORAL ACTS." Screams the gold letters splashed across a front and center sage colored panel. Jutting from the same bar to the right dangles another wood panel. Etched into the gray-black surface, like deep scars, are red tally marks, covering the entire 144-square-inch area. They indicate the casualties of the war.
In addition to the pieces on the tower itself, the walls surrounding it are patterned with a mosaic of photographs and more panels. In one photograph by Nina Berman, a bride and groom stand side by side. Her full-skirted white dress is trimmed in red, matching the bouquet of roses she carries. Her face is blank as she stares into the camera. Her groom is clad in the full-dress blues of a U.S. Marine officer, a series of medals affixed to the chest. He hangs his head, as if in shame. He has no ears, hair or eyebrows. His eyes are either shut. His lips are bulbous, swollen to twice their normal size. Two large holes and a slight bulge dot his face where his nose use to be.
This Peace Tower is a replica of a similar protest piece created 40 years ago in opposition to the Vietnam War. The contemporary tower was initially recreated for the 2006 biennial celebration of the esteemed Whitney Museum in New York. Di Suvero designed and built that tower, its predecessor as well as the one erected in Chicago, in his signature massive abstract style. "He’s got an international, hugely prestigious platform," participating artist Rebecca Keller explains. "When you have that kind of stature you can get publicity and raise issues in a louder way."
Many of the panels that hang from the latest incarnation of the Peace Tower could have been on the original. A piece done in primary colors portrays a red figure bent under the weight of a large, yellow peace symbol, an image that is sprinkled throughout the Tower. On the same wall, another piece is filled with handwritten black cursive quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt, Carl Sandberg, George Washington among others, interspersed with the question, "Are you listening?"
