Beati Pacifici: The Disasters of War and the Hope for International Peace

The Bailey Collection is pleased to present Beati Pacifici: The Disasters of War and the Hope for International Peace, an exhibition of works from the Bailey Collection curated by W. Bruce C. Bailey at Chiesa di San Samuele, San Marco, running concurrently with the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Bringing together over 200 works by Jacques Callot, Francisco Goya, Otto Dix, and contemporary luminaries from Marlene Dumas to Peter Doig, the exhibition assembles an anti-heroic history of Western war art. Tracing a particular chain of influence from the 17th century to the present day, Beati Pacifici testifies to art’s enduring power to apprehend the horrors of conflict, depicting the unspeakable. An original poem by Margaret Atwood, titled The Disasters of War: A Sequel, complements the exhibition.

The exhibition takes it starting point from Francisco Goya’s extraordinary series of 80 etchings, Los Desastres de la Guerra [The Disasters of War] (1810–1820), which remain one of Western art’s most sustained and unflinching attempts to both represent and denounce military violence. Begun as a response to Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, the work’s anti-war sentiments prevented its publication until 1863, and these graphic images of war’s victims appear no less challenging or urgent today. There are no battlefields and triumphs here, but nightmarish scenes of famine and civilian devastation. Unafraid of their own representational power, these works train the gaze of realism directly upon scenes and actions which defeat reason; the caption of one plate reads simply ‘No se puede saber por qué’ [Nobody knows why].

In dialogue with Goya’s searing work, the exhibition displays Jacques Callot's etching series Les Grandes Miséres de la guerre [The Great Miseries of War] (1633); the artist’s own copy of Otto Dix's 1924 series Der Krieg [The War], notably influenced by both Callot and Goya; Jake and Dinos Chapman’s direct response to Goya, Disasters of War II (1999); and Marlene Dumas’ group of prints The Fog of War (2006). Though separated by centuries and prompted by vastly different historical contexts, these works form a striking continuity, connecting to a shared ethic of witness and protest.

Displayed in the Chiesa di San Samuele, these interrelated series are complemented by a selection of works by contemporary artists including Peter Doig, Paterson Ewen and Jack Chambers whose images of rainbows, comets and shepherds offer allegorical visions of hope. Tyler Bright Hilton’s contribution explores the individual’s responsibility to confront violence, proposing action as an antidote to despair and advancing the exhibition’s exploration of the relationship between witness and protest.

The Bailey Collection was founded by the Canadian collector and philanthropist W. Bruce C. Bailey. Mr. Bailey focuses his philanthropic activities in Quebec and for many years served on the international art acquisition committee at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). In 2019-20, over 100 works from the Bailey Collection featured in a public exhibition at the MMFA, ‘For Every Atom Belonging to Me as Good Belongs to You: Selections from the Bailey Collection’, curated by Mary-Dailey Desmarais. In 2023 the MMFA announced the Espace W. Bruce C. Bailey, a gathering space at the gallery named in recognition of his long-time service and commitment to art in Canada.