Schmucker Art Gallery Artist Talk with Wafaa Bilal

Bodies in Conflict: From Gettysburg to Iraq (Project Space)
Curated by Laura Bergin ‘17

September 9 – October 22, 2016

Lecture by Wafaa Bilal, Associate Arts Professor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University: September 29, 5:30-6:30 pm (Lyceum, Pennsylvania Hall)

Reception in Schmucker Art Gallery to follow until 7:30 pm

Curated by Andrew W. Mellon Summer Scholar Laura Bergin ’17, this interdisciplinary exhibition examines how the human figure is represented in prints, photographs and paintings of modern war and political conflict from Gettysburg College’s Special Collections and Fine Arts Collection.  Bergin considers how journalistic photographs, artistic interpretations, and other visual documentation of conflict and its aftermath compare among wars and across historical periods.  Specific objects include a print and photographs from the Civil War, propaganda posters from the First and Second World Wars, photographs and a protest poster from the Vietnam War, and a large-scale photograph of a reconstructed journalistic image of Saddam Hussein’s palace by Iraqi-born contemporary artist Wafaa Bilal.

Wafaa Bilal is known internationally for his provocative online performance and interactive works. The artist was forced to flee Iraq at the age of 25, and his work reflects his fraught sense of belonging to two worlds – his home in the “comfort zone” of the U.S., and his consciousness of the “conflict zone” in Iraq. Bilal graduated from the University of New Mexico and earned an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work is represented in major public collections, including Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Milwaukee Art Museum; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California. Bilal lives and works in New York City, and is an Associate Professor of Art at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.