01 Work, The Art of War, Jack Kevorkian's The muse of genocide, with footnotes

Jack Kevorkian (May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011)

1915 Genocide, 1945 Series, The muse of genocide

Mixed media

Armenian Library and Museum of America, in Watertown, Massachusetts.

“Go ahead, destroy this race! Destroy Armenia; see if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh again; see if they will not sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a new Armenia.” The words belong to the bard of Fresno and apostle of Armenian-American letters, William Saroyan

This image strongly demonstrates that genocide subordinates human life in favor of an ideology.  The woman’s head is being displayed as a prize.  It is a prize because it is symbolic of what those who commit genocide revile, and, therefore, a symbol of victory.  The act of mass killing becomes victory of a cause.  It’s also important that Kevorkian used a woman’s head in the painting, because this further demonstrates that genocide is not an act between soldiers.  Genocide indiscriminately targets those who are “other,” because it is an attempt to eliminate an entire group of human beings. More on this painting

Jack Kevorkian (May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011) was an American pathologist and euthanasia proponent. He publicly championed a terminal patient's right to die by physician-assisted suicide, embodied in his quote, "Dying is not a crime". Kevorkian said that he assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He was convicted of murder in 1999 and was often portrayed in the media with the name of "Dr. Death".

In 1998, Kevorkian was arrested and tried for his role in the voluntary euthanasia of a man named Thomas Youk who had Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS. He was convicted of second-degree murder and served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence. He was released on parole on June 1, 2007, on condition he would not offer advice about, participate in, or be present at the act of any type of euthanasia to any other person, nor that he promote or talk about the procedure of assisted suicide.

Kevorkian was also an oil painter. His work tended toward the grotesque and surreal, and he had created pieces of symbolic art. The original oil prints are not for release. More on Jack Kevorkian

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