A black-and-white artwork featuring a collage of various illustrated scenes and text boxes. The images depict urban environments, figures, and abstract shapes, with a mixture of detailed line drawings and graphic elements. Textual elements provide commentary or context, occupying various sections throughout the composition. The piece is framed, emphasizing its structured layout and contrasting visuals.

A.S. Matta, Civilization is a Crime Scene, 2005, lithograph on paper. SFU Art Collection. Gift of SFU Anti-Colonialism Society, 2005.

Dale Northey
A black-and-white artwork featuring a collage of various illustrated scenes and text boxes. The images depict urban environments, figures, and abstract shapes, with a mixture of detailed line drawings and graphic elements. Textual elements provide commentary or context, occupying various sections throughout the composition. The piece is framed, emphasizing its structured layout and contrasting visuals.

Title

Civilization is a Crime Scene

Artist

A.S. Matta

Year

2005

Medium

Lithograph on paper

Collection

SFU Art Collection

Donor

Gift of SFU Anti-Colonialism Society

Year Acquired

2005

A.S. Matta’s comic-inspired work was selected as a winning entry in an Anti-Colonial Art Contest, organized by students in response to the installation of the Charles Comfort mural and the John Innes paintings. The drawings and photographs portrayed in the black and white lithograph juxtapose monumental statuary, colonial soldiers, and royal monarchs, with images of machines and modern cities. Matta’s imagery directly mirrors the subject matter of the Charles Comfort mural and the John Innes paintings, but the handwritten narrative and graphic style — resembling a page torn from an anarchist zine — assert a critical revisioning of these histories, and oppose the grandness of the historical painting tradition, with a countertradition of creative political writing, commentary, and satire. 

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