Although this exhibition is not strictly photographic, with paintings and videos also on display, it nevertheless offers a wide range of images, reminding viewers of the medium’s close ties to conflict. The works selected by curators Chuong-Dai Vo and Midori Yamamura are not exclusively documentary.
Nina Berman’s work of post-9/11 militarization is the one that comes closest, but the subtle compositions of her series are far from an exhaustive and formal inventory of the anticipation of conflict.
This presumption of imminent danger guides the latest work of An-My Lé, the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant. Vast, pristine landscapes in Antarctica, Africa and Asia, transformed by the presence of bunkers and other military structures, coldly cover the walls of the Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Art Gallery. The exhibition’s focus is two time periods often ignored by the media: the before and after of a conflict. This is how the more conceptual approaches complement the selection, from Dinh Q. Lê’s commemoration of the victims of the Khmer Rouge in the center of detention and execution of Tuol Sleng, to the “Misprints” by Paul Qaysi showing the victims of the Iraq War printed on the back of inkjet paper, with the ink running to the point where it becomes impossible to identify the subject.
Hiroshi Sunairi video combines the past and future: the artist trained his camera on the surviving trees in Hiroshima, offering them as models of the possibility of regrowth. The opening performance by Viêt Lê, entitled “Incredible, Indelible Invisible Man” was disturbing. Naked in white powder, the artist delicately covers his entire body with an immaculate mixture. When the artist tries to remove the substance, he strikes poses of suffering, prayer and prostration. He becomes hysterical. His skins turns red from the constant rubbing, his body shakes with tremors. We cannot help but think of the Japanese victims of radiation, an invisible and dangerous substance that creeps into every corner of the country and whose disparation is uncertain, not to say impossible.
Laurence Cornet
War is for living
Until March 23rd, 2013
The Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Art Gallery
417 Lafayette Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10003
USA
Tél. : 212 598 1155
