{"id":36464,"date":"2019-10-22T09:34:11","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T13:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=36464"},"modified":"2024-06-11T16:34:36","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T20:34:36","slug":"vostells-lipstick-bomber-caught-my-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2019\/10\/vostells-lipstick-bomber-caught-my-attention.html","title":{"rendered":"Vostell’s ‘Lipstick Bomber’ Caught My Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MoMA’s redesigned galleries have put some great previously unseen pieces on display, like Wolf Vostell’s antiwar art. Lipstick tubes replace bombs in this “widely circulated war photograph” of a B-52 dropping its bomb load over Vietnam. I won’t argue with MoMA’s explanatory description that Vostell was “equating mindless consumerism with apathy toward contemporary injustices and violence.” Of course he was. But I would go further than those abstractions. Seems to me he was equating it with mass murder and genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
‘Lipstick Bomber’ \u00a9 1968 by Wolf Vostell<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Coincidentally, a friend sent me a 50-year-old “telegram collage” about the Mi Lai massacre
of March 1968, which he happened to see in some library archive. No abstractions here.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
‘Death on 23TV’ \u00a9 1968 by j.h.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MoMA’s redesigned galleries have put some great previously unseen pieces on display, like Wolf Vostell’s antiwar art. Lipstick tubes replace bombs in a “widely circulated war photograph” of a B-52 dropping its bomb load over Vietnam. I won’t argue with MoMA’s explanatory description that Vostell was “equating mindless consumerism with apathy toward contemporary injustices and violence.” Of course he was. But I would go much further than those abstractions. Seems to me he was equating it with mass murder and genocide. Coincidentally, a friend sent me a 50-year-old “telegram collage” about the Mi Lai massacre of March 1968, which he happened to see in some library archive. No abstractions here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,4,20,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-main","9":"category-media","10":"category-news","11":"category-political-culture","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/JH-DEATH-ON-23TV-collage-1970-515x385.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-9u8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36464"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61247,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36464\/revisions\/61247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}