Raining Blood Photography and Arms Trafficking
Anonymous photographer, Bukharan arms dealers, before 1891, © Weltmuseum Wien, Photographic Collection; acquired by Franz Heger.
With Raining Blood, the Weltmuseum Wien presents an exhibition that deals with the arms trade around 1900. The exhibition uses the arms trade of this era as a lens to portray war and armed conflict in their deeply ambivalent nature within the museum’s collection.
Historical photographs and films, as well as historical objects, contrasted with contemporary works of art, reveal the tension between weapons production, need for protection , and life after destruction.
The show is not focused on the history of engineering or a fetishising fascination with military machines. Instead, it confronts the public with the raw personal, commercial, and existential reality of violence and its instruments across three themed rooms.