Bill Weege: Peace is Patriotic

March 15 – 30, 2007  |  Curated by Robert Epp

Gallery One One One is excited to present Peace is Patriotic, a portfolio of 25 anti-war prints from 1967, by American artist Bill Weege (weeg-he). Born in Wisconsin in 1935, Weege studied printmaking and sculpture at the University of Wisconsin at Madison during the Vietnam War era, and became one of the sixties most politically active artists. Using pop culture images and text, his inflammatory prints condemn American military aggression, government war propaganda, and the obscenity of modern warfare. His sophisticated prints combine photomontage and collage techniques with serigraphy and offset lithography printing. Widely reproduced as protest posters for student demonstrations in the 1960s, Weege's Peace is Patriotic fueled the peace movement in the United States that sought to end American involvement in the Vietnam War. Selected from the collection of Gallery One One One, Peace is Patriotic marks the fourth year anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq that began March 20, 2003.

  • A wall of the gallery, with four diptych graphic collages printed in reds, blacks, and whites and hung in a row, a CRT television showing a protest sign reading “STOP POLICE OBSTRUCTION” on a stand in the wall’s right corner, and a bench in front of it. The furthest right graphic depicts three nude figures in black and white with their hands covering their faces.
  • Two graphic collages printed in reds, blacks, and whites. The left contains a woman in lingerie, captioned “In every government on earth there is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy…. Thomas Jefferson”. The right is an illustration containing a chart of the female reproductive system with a target, a alluringly posed woman, an insect, and a bird, captioned “Blessed are the peace makers”, and five-point stars.
  • Two black and white graphic collages. The contains Charlie Chaplin in a military uniform, a chart of the respiratory system, a knight, and five-point stars, captioned “*PEACE”. The right contains a deformed face, lips holding a cigarette covered in black lines with a nude woman and a chart of the human heart behind it, and a chart of the human skull, captioned “NAPALM:” in reverse.
  • Two graphic collages printed in reds. The left contains many images put together in the shape of the number 1, bordered with the captions “why can not all”, “MINORITIES BE HEARD!”, and “BECAUSE THEIR BULL HORNA AREN’T BIG ENOUGH.”. The right contains a figure in lingerie holding a sex toy (?) on a background comprised of the repeated phrases “SOCK IT TO ME” and “SOCK IT TO ME BABY” printed in small dense text.

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