LYSISTRATA

My ultimate antiwar image takes place in a terrifying nuclear interior. Joan Miro’s print, titled “A Cats Whiskers,” 1900s (?), has been altered into a mushroom cloud, mimicking the explosion on the horizon. Picasso’s “Guernica,” 1937, is a detail of the tortured mother and child, which is the basis for the title Lysistrata.

The first recorded antiwar campaign was the Greek women’s protest, as performed in the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes in Athens in 411 BC. This was during the 27-year war, 431–404 BC., between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. She joined the women of the two cities to deny all the men of Greece any sex until the war ended. In the play, that movement led to a peace agreement soon after. Too bad it was just a play.