Disasters of War Then and Now
December 14, 2023–April 14, 2024
Gallery 9
Kept secret during his lifetime, Goya’s prints fiercely condemned Napoleon I’s occupation of Spain, particularly the atrocities of the Dos de Mayo Uprising of 1808 and the Peninsular war of 1808–1814. Recognized for his own biting social critiques, Chagoya’s Homage to Goya II: Disasters of War makes alterations, substitutions, and insertions to Goya’s prints, transforming them into sardonic contemporary commentaries on issues from American imperialism to the art market.
Hanging the original Goya prints with Chagoya’s reinterpretations emphasizes the continuity of human corruption and brutality while playfully highlighting the shape these issues take in our own time. In Estragos de la guerra (Ravages of War), for example, Chagoya replaces the chair in Goya’s original with a television, hinting at how mass media has changed the way we consume the calamities of war.
Two of Chagoya’s prints depart from The Disasters, and instead visualize the artist as an heir to both Goya and the famous Mexican satirist José Guadalupe Posada. In one he alludes to the fact that his surname includes the word Goya within it, while at the same time poking self-deprecating fun at this genealogy by showing himself as too small for Goya’s hat and shoe.
The museum thanks Diane Evans for Chagoya’s set of 10 etchings. As curator at the Nevada Museum of Art she organized an exhibition of the artist’s work in 2000 and began collecting his prints. After moving to Honolulu in 2019, she reached out to HoMA, offering the portfolio as a gift.
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Enrique Chagoya (American, born in Mexico 1953). “Estragos de la Guerra” (“Ravages of War”) from Homage to Goya II: Disasters of War), 2023. Etching, aquatint, and rubber stamp. Gift of Diane Evans, 2022 (2022-03-02). © Enrique Chagoya. Courtesy of George Adams Gallery, New York.
