Krzysztof Wodiczko: The Art of Un-War

a film by Maria Niro

An instigator for social change, renowned artist Krzysztof Wodiczko challenges our complacency towards war, xenophobia and displacement with his unique public art interventions.

The Art of Un-War is an in-depth exploration of Wodiczko’s life and the art interventions he creates as powerful responses to the inequities and horrors of war and injustice. Throughout the film, the artist’s powerful interventions become examples of how art can be used to disrupt public complacency. 

The evolution of Wodiczko’s political art unfolds throughout the film from his first intervention created in Warsaw in 1968, to one of his most ambitious projects and a focal point of the film - a radical proposal to transform Paris’ Arc De Triomphe war monument into a site for peace-building research and activism. Wodiczko counters the monument’s glorification of war and portrayal of distorted histories by constructing scaffolding around the Arc De Triomphe and transforming it into its complete antithesis. 

Filmed in the United States, France, Canada, Japan, and South Korea, The Art of Un-War is one of the most comprehensive investigations into Wodiczko’s lifelong inquiry of historical war monuments. Narrated by Wodiczko, and in conversations with artists, activists, art historians, and curators.  Through colleagues and fellow artists, we come to know Wodiczko as an empathetic media artist with a deep commitment to exposing the travesties of war and its aftermath.  

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