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Course: Tate > Unit 2
Lesson 5: Creating ContradictionPeter Kennard's political photomontages
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Shocking and often made of contradictory images, the photomontages of artist Peter Kennard leave a mark on their viewers. For the past four decades Kennard has consistently challenged power structures and injustice, from his anti-nuclear works of the 1980s to the powerful images he created in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kennard has created a legacy of powerful work that stands as an open confrontation to political injustice. He creates montages using images of war, conflict, and what he calls “collateral damage”—usually in the form of human beings—to protest, comment, and reflect upon global conflicts. Join Kennard on a tour of his studio as he explains his work.
Shocking and often made of contradictory images, the photomontages of artist Peter Kennard leave a mark on their viewers. For the past four decades Kennard has consistently challenged power structures and injustice, from his anti-nuclear works of the 1980s to the powerful images he created in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kennard has created a legacy of powerful work that stands as an open confrontation to political injustice. He creates montages using images of war, conflict, and what he calls “collateral damage”—usually in the form of human beings—to protest, comment, and reflect upon global conflicts. Join Kennard on a tour of his studio as he explains his work.
Photomontage is a technique in which two or more images are cut and joined together to create a new one. What do you think makes Kennard’s montages so powerful?
See more powerful photographs and collages by Peter Kennard here.
Video transcript
I wanted to see if I could actually make a book it wasn't just a collection of images not catalog but it's an actual story about the world there's absolutely no language except on the back cover where the word at earth is written in about 40 different languages so the idea is that you read it like you would language because it's made up of photomontages something that's gone through all my work for years is the image of the human face most images are the people that are actually being affected by the subjects in the book by global warming by military by police by by the state there's a resilience in the faces there's a strength in enduring what's going on the images from this time are very very simple and direct and millions of children are dying every year we're spending more and more on weaponry we know those things are happening so why not just put the two together and make an image of it why not making an image what we know in our heads is the reality yeah I mean I don't mind if it looks simplistic something like that I'm quite happy about that I was doing pictures about cried Trident missiles 40 years ago and now this country is reconditioning its aim Trident missiles 40 years later the images are still relevant so I think it's important to show a sort of history within the work this is the original of one of the images it's in the book and again it's got the it's got the cross hairs from smart bombs what the image shows is very simply that what they call collateral damage is people I mean I've always been really concerned with the materiality of images not just the smoothness of a photograph but at the actual physicality of a piece of paper that's been scrunched up and worked on here that is an image of the earth when it's got on filings put onto it and started messing around with Globes pouring stuff on for them and then photographing it just a hand breaking a missile if it's the earth everyone knows those things so then then you can start mucking around with it and start pushing it it's always going to be a trace of that image that's why the books called at earth you don't need the word earth on the cover you just show it I mean I think it's important to showing galleries that it's also important to get it out in the street so it can be used as a as a tool by people that are in struggle there is a sense that there's something happening globally which is why I think it's important to try and develop visual forms that are global that will actually affect people across countries about people acting in the world rather than sitting back and thinking they can't do anything