Wolfgang Petrick: Tourists 1971, signed Lithograph, Divers on Vacation

It is not surprising that someone takes aim at mass tourism, which is unpleasant for everyone involved, with its environmentally and climate damaging excesses. What is remarkable about this lithograph, however, is that Wolfgang Petrick already did this 50 years ago, when the German people's desire to travel was just developing from the idyll of camping to a longing for long-distance travel to neighboring countries (Italy!). Even then, German vacationers must not always have presented themselves from their best side, because the three tourists in Petrick's color lithograph do not exactly belong to the group of sympathetic figures: dressed with grimly disinterested facial expressions and martial-looking diving equipment, they enter a swimming pool that is far too small and also seems to be peppered with sharp knife points. In fact, the scene seems more like the invasion of enemies than "vacation among friends", while the nature in the background doesn't seem to interest anyone.