Marcelle Hanselaar 'Bearing Witness? Violence and Trauma on Paper’ at The Fitzwilliam Museum

Preceding the solo presentation of her incredible new print series ‘Rebel Women from the Apocrypha’ at Anima Mundi we are delighted to announce Marcelle Hanselaar’s central participation in  'Bearing Witness? Violence and Trauma on Paper’ at The Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge.  

The exhibition showcases 'The Crying Game (2015-17), a set of prints by Marcelle Hanselaar. The thirty etchings that make up 'The Crying Game' are interspersed with prints by major artists, some of whom have been her greatest influences including Francisco Goya (1746-1828), who documented the cruelty of the Spanish Peninsular War (1808-14) and Otto Dix (1891-1969), as well as Leo Haas (1901-1983) and Jean Rustin (1928-2013), who witnessed atrocities of World War II and the Nazi holocaust. The exhibition also includes works by the Chapman Brothers, Jane Joseph, Eduard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Judy Watson.

Spanning almost 400 years, this exhibition explores some of the ways artists have responded to political violence and social injustice. Drawn from collections at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the display surveys different forms of witnessing: works by artists who had direct experience of horrors, or who grew up in the shadow of terrible events; those who were commissioned to give visual form to the words of others, and those who assimilate in their work the trauma of distant ordeals.

The display asks us to think about how violence can be understood or appreciated through art. These artists bear witness to the collectivity of violence, but their works are also about looking. Each tries to draw us in to contemplate their challenging image, sometimes with the intention to shock, but always with the intention to mesmerize. What does it mean to witness violence even at a remove, even years after the events depicted?

Hanselaar uses the inherent ferocity of the scored etched line to confront such disparate images as the conflicts and destruction in the Middle East, the plight of refugees, child soldiers, slavery and drug addiction. 

Hanselaar’s work adds a female perspective and makes a significant contribution to Fitzwilliam’s growing collection of prints relating to war and conflict. Juxtaposed in this way, showing a long history of violence as documented by artists, Hanselaar’s prints address issues of shock and provocation and confront the ethical responsibilities of being an observer in a world riddled with horror and violence.

'Bearing Witness? Violence and Trauma on Paper’ takes place at The Fitzwilliam Museum's Shiba Gallery, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RB from 10 Jan to 2 April 2023.


For further information on this exhibition click here

For further information on Marcelle Hanselaar click here