No more peace now, 2025
comissioned for Steierische Herbst, 2025

carton, newspapers, food bags, wood branches, foam, tooth sticks

My sharp eye read 74 different newspapers and cut out almost every picture, pasted it into a collage No More Peace New for wonderful Steierische Herbst 2025 in Graz, Austria. Adaptation of Ernst Toller play No More Peace, 1937, shows 4 main characters “sitting” on the bomb GBU-57A/B MOP, which was drawn on the wall in scale 1:1 by Eva Schmartschan.

Saint Francis of Assisi and Napoleon, discussing if people prefer peace or war. I use the fresco in the Roman Catholic church on Corso Rosellino in the town of Pienza, Italy, where Saint Francis gives one hand to the kind wolf previously terrorising a village Gubbio and the other hand to a higher-ranking cardinal in red. According to a dream of Pope Innocent III, depicted in another fresco by Giotto, where Saint Francis supports the basilica in Rome, as if to save it, to heal the church from the problems it was facing. The most powerful man in the world at the time, Pope Innocent III, was responsible for several crusades, in which several hundred thousand and, according to some sources, several millions people have died.

In a painting by January Suchodolski, Battle for Palm Tree Hill, 1845, depicts a scene of a clash between two forces. Napoleon, in 1802, re-proclaimed slavery in the French colonies to keep on war machinery. To spare the French soldiers, he sent 5,000 Polish legionnaires to the island, which already had a high mortality rate due to yellow fever and the terrible treatment of slaves on sugar plantations. Suchodolski probably depicted Polish legionnaires here, fighting on the side of the rebel slaves. About 500 Polish people survived and their descendants can still be found on the island, because the Polish legionnaires were spared the white genocide that followed shortly after the successful coup.

The third character is Eva and her daughter Rahel. Eva welcomes war as a means of fulfilling life. She would like to be proud of her son, a brave soldier, but she only has a daughter, Rahel, who cares about her wedding and who is the only one rejecting war from the very beginning. The mother Eva is depicted here as "Black Anna" (title work Losbruch) painted by Kathe Kollowitz, who made a cycle of line etching in 1902/1903 while reading about the peasant war from 1525.

There is a writing on the branch: “We will launch an international strike, we will block the roads, we will block the schools, we will block everything.” dockworkers, Genoa, IT , “Cotton to Austin: Why Was an Airman Who Self-Immolated Allowed to Serve?” , “Aboussad continued, shouting that Suleyman and “all of Microsoft” had blood on their hands…” “Importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption. ” Microsoft after employees strike against Azure cloud project. and “it is not important what you do but what you don't", M. Fukuoka.

The fourth is a three-character: Der Hagere, Der Dicke, Der Kleine, who know how to take care of themselves, whether it's peace or war. They turned into the fairytale Long, Broad, and Sharp-eyed, collected by Karel Jaromír Erben in 1865 and fantastically illustrated by Květa Pacovská. The story is about a prince who must marry on his father's orders. He does not choose any of the brides offered to him, but he likes a prisoner, the daughter of an evil wizard. The wizard lives in a kingdom where everyone has turned to stone. In order to free her and marry her, he must prevent her from escaping three times. The wizard transforms her three times and takes her far away.
On the third night, the wizard turns his daughter into a golden ring. Sharp-eyed finds her hidden in a shell at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, Long carries Wide, who whips up the entire sea, while Long reaches for the ring. They manage to bring the princess back, the stoned kingdom comes to life, and the evil wizard turns into a crow.

Writing on the wall: DER DICKE: Ich habe Pflüge geschmiedet. Ich werde Granaten schmieden.

Photo © steirischer herbst / Mathias Völzke