Peace Tower (art)
Encyclopedia
Peace Tower is an art installation by Mark di Suvero
and others. It was first conceived and constructed in 1966 as The Artists' Tower of Protest in Los Angeles, California
to protest
the Vietnam War
. Forty years later, di Suvero collaborated with Rirkrit Tiravanija
to construct a new installation, called Peace Tower (2006) at the Whitney Museum of American Art
in New York City
to protest the Iraq War.
. They raised about $10,000 (much of it secretly from Robert Rauschenberg
, according to Max Kozloff
) and rented an empty lot on The Strip between Hollywood and Los Angeles
. The group was led by Arnold Mesches and Irving Petlin
, a New York painter then teaching in Los Angeles. Others involved were Judy Gerowitz
and Lloyd Hamrol. Mark di Suvero
, another New York artist who happened to be in LA for his show at the Dwan Gallery, agreed to do the design for the tower based on work he was doing.
The tower consisted of a fifty-eight foot steel tetrahedron
. A fence surrounding the tower had a large yellow sign that read, "Artists Protest Vietnam War." The tower served as a platform for 418 two-foot by two-foot paintings contributed by artists and later auctioned. The artists included Elise Asher, Rudolf Baranik
, Will Barnet
, Nell Blaine
, Paul Brach
, James Brooks
, Vija Celmins, Herman Cherry, Allan D'Arcangelo, Elaine de Kooning
, Philip Evergood
, Leon Golub
, Balcomb Greene
, Philip Guston
, Robert Gwathmey
, Eva Hesse
, John Hultberg, Donald Judd
, Max Kozloff
, Jack Levine
, Roy Lichtenstein
, Marcia Marcus, Robert Motherwell
, Alice Neal, Louise Nevelson, Philip Pearlstein
, Ad Reinhardt
, James Rosenquist
, Moses Soyer
, Nancy Spero
, Hedda Sterne
, May Stevens
, George Sugarman
, Tom Wesselmann
, Robert Wiegand, and Adja Yunkers
.
The tower was dedicated on February 26, 1966 and stood for three months. Public opinion was heavily divided on the issue of the war and the time. The tower and the artists were attacked and ended up having to defend the tower physically. They were aided by volunteers from Watts
, the recent scene of race riots. Petlin relates that at one point he had to defend himself with a broken lightbulb and that when Frank Stella
heard about this he sent a check for $1000, writing, "Anybody who puts their life on the line defending a work of art of mine, I'm going to send a thousand bucks to." In the end, no painting was damaged.
's Sculpture Court in conjunction with the 2006 Whitney Biennial
. Rirkrit Tiravanija
had originally thought to have an event centered around a tower in Central Park
to coincide with the Republican National Convention
. When that did not come together and he was approached by the curators Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne to do a project for the Whitney, be proposed this and that Mark di Suvero
should be involved. They contacted di Suvero, who was interested and who contacted Irving Petlin
.
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...
and others. It was first conceived and constructed in 1966 as The Artists' Tower of Protest in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
to protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Forty years later, di Suvero collaborated with Rirkrit Tiravanija
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Rirkrit Tiravanija is a contemporary artist residing in New York. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1961. His installations often take the form of stages or rooms for sharing meals, cooking, reading or playing music; architecture or structures for living and socializing are a core element...
to construct a new installation, called Peace Tower (2006) at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to protest the Iraq War.
Los Angeles, 1966
The idea for the original Peace Tower came from the Los Angeles Artists Protest Committee, an organization of a hundred or so local artists, wishing to make a visible statement against the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. They raised about $10,000 (much of it secretly from Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, according to Max Kozloff
Max Kozloff
Max Kozloff is an American Art Historian, art critic of modern art and photographer. He has been art editor at The Nation, and Executive Editor of Artforum...
) and rented an empty lot on The Strip between Hollywood and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. The group was led by Arnold Mesches and Irving Petlin
Irving Petlin
Irving Petlin is an American artist and painter renowned for his mastery of the pastel medium and collaborations with other artists and for his work in the "series form" in which he uses the raw material of pastel, oil paint and unprimed linen, and finds inspiration in the work of writers and...
, a New York painter then teaching in Los Angeles. Others involved were Judy Gerowitz
Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago is a feminist artist, author, and educator.Chicago has been creating artwork since the mid 1960s. Her earliest forays into the art world coincided with the rise of Minimalism, which she eventually abandoned in favor of art she believed to have greater content and relevance...
and Lloyd Hamrol. Mark di Suvero
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...
, another New York artist who happened to be in LA for his show at the Dwan Gallery, agreed to do the design for the tower based on work he was doing.
The tower consisted of a fifty-eight foot steel tetrahedron
Tetrahedron
In geometry, a tetrahedron is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex. A regular tetrahedron is one in which the four triangles are regular, or "equilateral", and is one of the Platonic solids...
. A fence surrounding the tower had a large yellow sign that read, "Artists Protest Vietnam War." The tower served as a platform for 418 two-foot by two-foot paintings contributed by artists and later auctioned. The artists included Elise Asher, Rudolf Baranik
Rudolf Baranik
Rudolf Baranik was an artist, educator and writer.Born in Lithuania, he immigrated to the United States in 1938. He was well known in the art world for his political advocacy, and was one of the first artists to organize protests against the war in Vietnam...
, Will Barnet
Will Barnet
Will Barnet is an American artist known for his paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints depicting the human figure and animals, both in casual scenes of daily life and in transcendent dreamlike worlds.-Biography:...
, Nell Blaine
Nell Blaine
Nell Blair Walden Blaine was an American landscape painter and watercolorist.-Life:She studied at the Richmond School of Art....
, Paul Brach
Paul Brach
Paul Brach, Born March 13, 1924 in New York City and he died November 16, 2007 in Easthampton, New York. Paul Brach was primarily known as an American abstract painter and as a lecturer and educator....
, James Brooks
James Brooks (painter)
James Brooks was an American muralist, abstract painter and winner of the Logan Medal of the Arts. Brooks was a friend of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner on Eastern Long Island. In 1947 he married artist Charlotte Park...
, Vija Celmins, Herman Cherry, Allan D'Arcangelo, Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist, Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era and editorial associate for Art News magazine...
, Philip Evergood
Philip Evergood
Philip Howard Francis Dixon Evergood was an American painter, etcher, lithographer, sculptor, illustrator and writer. He was particularly active during the Depression and World War II era.-Life:...
, Leon Golub
Leon Golub
Leon Golub was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950, respectively.He was married to and collaborated with the artist Nancy Spero...
, Balcomb Greene
Balcomb Greene
Balcomb Greene and his wife, artist Gertrude Glass Greene, were heavily involved in political activism to promote mainstream acceptance of abstract art. They were founding members of the American Abstract Artists organization. His early style was completely non-objective. Juan Gris and Piet...
, Philip Guston
Philip Guston
Philip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
, Robert Gwathmey
Robert Gwathmey
Robert Gwathmey was an American social realist painter. His wife was photographer Rosalie Gwathmey and his son was architect Charles Gwathmey.-References:...
, Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
, John Hultberg, Donald Judd
Donald Judd
Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...
, Max Kozloff
Max Kozloff
Max Kozloff is an American Art Historian, art critic of modern art and photographer. He has been art editor at The Nation, and Executive Editor of Artforum...
, Jack Levine
Jack Levine
Jack Levine was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives.-Biography:...
, Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
, Marcia Marcus, Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
, Alice Neal, Louise Nevelson, Philip Pearlstein
Philip Pearlstein
Philip Pearlstein is an American painter, and part of the contemporary Realist school.-Biography:Pearlstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and received his Masters in art history at New York University. He was a friend of Andy Warhol from...
, Ad Reinhardt
Ad Reinhardt
Adolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
, James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist is an American artist and one of the protagonists in the pop-art movement.-Background and education:...
, Moses Soyer
Moses Soyer
-Biography:Soyer was born in Borisoglebsk, Russia in 1899. His father was a Hebrew scholar, writer and teacher. His family emigrated to the USA in 1912. Soyer's brothers, Raphael and Isaac were also painters...
, Nancy Spero
Nancy Spero
Nancy Spero was an American visual artist.-Life and work:Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Spero lived for much of her life in New York City. She was married to, and collaborated with artist Leon Golub....
, Hedda Sterne
Hedda Sterne
Hedda Sterne was an artist best remembered as the only woman in a group of Abstract Expressionists known as "The Irascibles" which consisted of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and others...
, May Stevens
May Stevens
May Stevens is an American feminist artist, political activist, educator, and writer. Major works include: Freedom Riders , "Big Daddy" series , Ordinary/Extraordinary , and SoHo Women Artists . In 1977, she was one of the featured artists discussed in a seminar given by Jacqueline Moss at the...
, George Sugarman
George Sugarman
George Sugarman was an American artist working in the mediums of drawing, painting, and sculpture. Often described as controversial and forward-thinking, Sugarman's prolific body of work defies a definitive style. He pioneered the concepts of pedestal-free sculpture and is best known for his...
, Tom Wesselmann
Tom Wesselmann
Tom Wesselmann was an American artist associated with the Pop art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture.-Early years:...
, Robert Wiegand, and Adja Yunkers
Adja Yunkers
Adja Yunkers was an American abstract painter and printmaker. He was born in Riga, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire in 1900. He studied art in Leningrad, Berlin, Paris, and London. He lived in Paris for 14 years, and then moved to Stockholm in 1939. In Stockholm, he published and edited...
.
The tower was dedicated on February 26, 1966 and stood for three months. Public opinion was heavily divided on the issue of the war and the time. The tower and the artists were attacked and ended up having to defend the tower physically. They were aided by volunteers from Watts
Watts, Los Angeles, California
Watts is a mostly residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, California.-History:The area now known as Watts is located on the Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant...
, the recent scene of race riots. Petlin relates that at one point he had to defend himself with a broken lightbulb and that when Frank Stella
Frank Stella
Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
heard about this he sent a check for $1000, writing, "Anybody who puts their life on the line defending a work of art of mine, I'm going to send a thousand bucks to." In the end, no painting was damaged.
New York, 2006
The Peace Tower 2006 was built in the Whitney MuseumWhitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
's Sculpture Court in conjunction with the 2006 Whitney Biennial
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennale exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932, the first biennial was in 1973...
. Rirkrit Tiravanija
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Rirkrit Tiravanija is a contemporary artist residing in New York. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1961. His installations often take the form of stages or rooms for sharing meals, cooking, reading or playing music; architecture or structures for living and socializing are a core element...
had originally thought to have an event centered around a tower in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
to coincide with the Republican National Convention
Republican National Convention
The Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...
. When that did not come together and he was approached by the curators Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne to do a project for the Whitney, be proposed this and that Mark di Suvero
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...
should be involved. They contacted di Suvero, who was interested and who contacted Irving Petlin
Irving Petlin
Irving Petlin is an American artist and painter renowned for his mastery of the pastel medium and collaborations with other artists and for his work in the "series form" in which he uses the raw material of pastel, oil paint and unprimed linen, and finds inspiration in the work of writers and...
.