Opium
Artist: Theo Matejko
Year: 1919

The tension across Europe was a balloon waiting for a pinprick by the time the armistice
between Germany and the Allied Forces was signed at Compiègne on 11 November 1918. 
In an instant, the uncertainty that humanity felt during
World War I found its fear and huddling replaced by frantic euphoria.

To combat civil unrest in war-decimated Germany, the Council of Peoples Commissioners quickly
abolished the military censorship instigated at the outset of the Great War.  Film studios took advantage of this new freedom,
and there was a sudden increase in “Aufklarungsfilme” (enlightenment films) pretending to be concerned with social welfare
launching full throttle into subjects such as drug abuse and rampant promiscuity to even more socially taboo subjects like prostitution,
sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, (gasp!) homosexuality, and rampant drug use, such as the film Opium.

Not unsurprisingly, after a year and a half of horrific shock films and thinly veiled pornography played to thoroughly attentive audiences
throughout all the major theaters in Germany, the government stepped back in and on 12 May 1920 censorship was firmly reinstated.

Hysteria, lust, delerium, and derangement- it is of course no surprise that the Nazis would later pursue and
destroy most of these films as “decadent”.

Facsimile editions

Archival bamboo paper
44” Edition of 150…………$1850
36” Edition of 150………….$950

Cotton rag paper
36” Edition of 300…………. $550