Victims of War (2024)
Hallgrímur Helgason opens an exhibition in Gallery Kompan, an independent artist’s space run by sculptor Aðalheiður Eyþórsdóttir in her famous Alþýðuhús in the town of Siglufjörður.The show runs from 3rd of August until 1st of September and is titled “Victims of War”. It consists of 12 new portraits of world leaders that started or still support the ongoing wars of our time. For too long we have lived with the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, and since last year, Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We have become accustomed to daily murders of civilians, mostly women and children, on a grand scale. It has filled us with anger towards the leaders of Russia, Israel and the latter’s supporters in the West, in the USA and the European Union. All our lives we have fought against colonialism and racism, only to see “our” leaders bow to those evils like never before.
With an exhibition titled “Victims of War” the artist airs his frustration. He wants to shift the focus from the endless horrors that fill our phones and to the people who could possibly stop them. All those politicians will be judged by their actions or inaction during this time of a double genocide. Thus they are all “Victims of War”. Here we see Putin’s bloody face, Lavrov’s crocodile tears, Netanyahu with a runny nose, Biden crying in bad conscience black and von der Leyen in what she thinks is good conscience white. All the paintings are done this year, in Reykjavik and the island of Hrísey.
