Bombs Bursting in Air
Acrylic on canvas
212.7 × 167.3 × 4.1 cm (83 3/4 × 65 7/8 × 1 5/8 in.)
Five lightly dressed women proudly sing America's national anthem in an apocalyptic setting. The sky's bright colours, red and yellow tears, recall those of the Vietnamese flag. Robert Colescott called the painting Bombs Bursting in Air, ironically echoing the song's words as well as bombings during the Vietnam War.
Ten years after Al Madhi, a painting in the Pinault Collection, Colescott pursued a very personal figurative vein with this satirical oil on canvas. Its cynical patriotism echoes his ceaseless, virulent criticism of American society. It also questions the ideas of desire, power, destruction and sex.
Robert Colescott's Bombs Bursting in Air is being presented for the first time by the Pinault Collection during the “Untitled, 2020” exhibition at the Punta della Dogana in Venice (2020).
© Couvent des Jacobins, photography Aurélien Mole
Vue d’exposition : « Forever Sixties » présentée au Couvent des Jacobins, Rennes, 10 juin – 10 septembre 2023
Courtesy Pinault Collection
Robert Colescott
Fears: The Big Bad Wolf, 1973
Llyn Foulkes
Deliverance, 2007
Robert Colescott
Bombs Bursting in Air, 1978
