Les Gueules Cassées

The Kunsthalle Mainz is commemorating “Les Gueules Cassées” with an exhibition that depicts war wounds, pain and loss from the perspective of contemporary art.

“Les Gueules Cassées” is a special century exhibition to commemorate the five French war veterans present at the treaty signing in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on June 28, 1919, whose faces were disfigured by horrid scars from grenade shrapnel.

In the exhibition neither the political nor the military history of World War I is illustrated. Instead, it brings together outstanding works of modern art which lay bare the scars of war: fear, trauma and precarious memory.

The sight of facial injuries creates feelings of dread and shame. The local point of reference becomes readily apparent when Black Hawk helicopters fly over the Kunsthalle Mainz several times a day. The helicopters are stationed at the Wiesbaden-Erbenheim airport less than 10km away, where the US Army has its European headquarters. Severely injured servicemen and women from the Iraq and Afghanistan war theaters are given medical treatment at the local military hospitals. Our present-day “gueules cassées” are directly nearby, yet unlike the battle-injured from the First World War, their modern counterparts are shielded from public view and rendered invisible for propaganda reasons.

Markus Schinwald, *Oskar*, 2003, Pigmentprint 700× 100 cm Courtesy: the artist © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014

until 8 June 2014
Les Gueules Cassées
Scars from the Great War in the contemporary Art
Kunsthalle Mainz
c/o Stadtwerke Mainz AG
Rheinallee 41, Mainz

Les Gueules Cassées

The Kunsthalle Mainz is commemorating “Les Gueules Cassées” with an exhibition that depicts war wounds, pain and loss from the perspective of contemporary art.

Latest on News

Latest on Domus