exhibition
“The War That Ended Peace”. Photo exhibition
17 April 2015 — 12 July 2015
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Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presented the photo exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War

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The project “The War That Ended Peace” reconstructs the events of 1914—1918 and shows the war through the eyes of all conflict parties, paying special attention to Russia's participation in this terrible world tragedy.

The title of the exhibition — “The War That Ended Peace” — is taken from the book “The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914” by the famous historian and professor of Oxford University Margaret MacMillan, great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister of 1916—1922.

The exhibition features unique photos, stereo pairs and stereo projections, autochromes and color photographs, documentaries and audios, Russian and French war magazines, leaflets, and caricatures, as well as posters and lithographs by Kazimir Malevich, Aristarchus Lentulov and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

The exhibition presents photographs taken by both professional (profession of military photojournalist first appeared during World War I) and by amateur photographers. For example, works by the famous Russian physicist Sergei Vavilov or by the Italian Princess Anna Maria Borghese, who just as most women of her class worked for the Red Cross, rescuing the wounded, from the first days of the war.

The main objective of the exhibition is not just reconstructing the events that took place on all fronts, but also revealing sufferings of the peaceful civil population. Moreover, the exhibition allows seeing how the attitude to the war, of soldiers, journalists, and peaceful citizens, had changed over four years.

Russia entered World War I on August 1, 1914. There are still debates: whether it was possible to avoid the war, which became the first global catastrophe? 38 countries and over 1.5 billion people were involved and more than 22 million people were killed, while at least 11 million were innocent civilians. It was during World War I when the weapon of mass destruction was first used. This war has forever divided the world history into “before” and “after”...

The exhibition is organized by the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow. Co-organizers of the project: ECPAD (The French Defence communication and audiovisual production agency), France; Albert Kahn Museum and Garden, Department of Boulogne-Billancourt, France; Russian Heritage Conservation Fund of the European Union, Brussels; Royal Museum of the Army and Military History, Brussels; Russian State Film and Photo Archive, Moscow; The International Committee of Red Cross, Geneva / Moscow; Nicephore Niepce Museum, Chalon-sur-Saone, France; Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; State Literary Museum, Moscow; Imperial War Museum, London; Polish Army Museum, Warsaw; Museum of Military History, Vienna. The project also includes materials from Renault archives, France; private Russian, French and Italian collections.

The exhibition will run on the fifth floor of Erarta Museum New wing from 17 April to 12 July.

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