A (image): 21 1/2 x 27 3/4 in. (54.6 x 70.5 cm) B (image): 21 3/8 x 28 3/8 in. (54.3 x 72.1 cm)
Type:
Graphic Arts-Print
Date:
1969
Exhibition Label:
The density of images in Moratorium conveys the ubiquitous presence of the Vietnam War in everyday life. Here Irizarry appropriated photographs and text from media sources. Dominating the left side is a likeness of Vice President Spiro Agnew, famous for his dismissal of antiwar intellectuals as "impudent snobs," next to an image of a large antiwar protest. President Richard Nixon's face appears below, tinted orange and repeated in a pop-style grid. Irizarry also quotes antiwar works by other artists: Jasper Johns's 1969 Moratorium flag poster and Picasso's 1937 painting Guernica. Picasso's painting--condemning the Nazi bombing of Spanish civilians--had been on loan in New York since the 1940s, and Vietnam War-era activists embraced it as an emblem of war resistance.
