Exhibition
Paris, Le Bal
Topography of war
Jananne Al-Ani, Aerial IV, from the film Shadow Sites II, 2011 © Jananne Al-Ani, Courtesy of the artist
Harun Farocki, Serious games 4 : A Sun with no Shadow, 2009-2010 © Harun Farocki
Harun Farocki, Serious games 4 : A Sun with no Shadow, 2009-2010 © Harun Farocki
An-My Lê, Mechanized Assault, 2003-2004, extrait de la série 29 Palms © An-My Lê, Courtesy of the artist and Murray Guy, New York
Jo Ratcliffe, On the road to Cuito Canavale IV, 2010 © Jo Ratcliffe, Courtesy of the artist and STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg
Donovan Wylie, OP1. Forward Operating Base, Ma’sum Ghar. Kandahar Province. Afghanistan, 2010 © Donovan Wylie, Courtesy of the artist
Paola de Pietri, Pal Piccolo, 2009, extrait de la série To Face © Paola de Pietri, Courtesy of the artist
Luc Delahaye & Eyal Weizman, The Space of this Room is your Interpretation, 2011 d’après «A Travers les murs» d’Eyal Weizman (Ed. La Fabrique, 2008) © Luc Delahaye & Eyal Weizman
Photogramme extrait de la vidéo Collateral Murder, 2010 © Wikileaks
Walid Raad/The Atlas Group, Let’s Be Honest, The Weather Helped, Plate_Iraq, 1998-2006 © Walid Raad, Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
Jananne Al-Ani, Aerial IV, from the film Shadow Sites II, 2011 © Jananne Al-Ani, Courtesy of the artist
Faced with an avalanche of weapons, dead bodies, explosions Diane Dufour Director of the BAL and Jean-Yves Jouannais curators of the exhibit Topography of war chose an other way to show war, « beyond the frame » as Jean-Yves wrote.
The exhibited works, photos and videos ban confrontation armed and harmed bodies.Made after 2000 they have in common a documentary ambition ,the will to disincarnate war and to focalise on space, be it geographical or build area.An intentional way of looking at war through geography, it gets closer to the early war photographers Fenton, Mathew Brady,Timothy O'Sullivan the only difference is that for the pioneers it was for technical reasons it was their only ways.
On the opposite with extreme technical advance and with media censorship it has become impossible to work freely on the grounds today. « Is war on the battle field becoming abstract data? An ideology construction an information that cannot be seen? »
With To Face (2009-2010) Paola di Pietri photographed in the Alps and the Pre-Alps and in the Carso the discreet stigmatas of the first world war: stone walls, casemates,tombs and network of trenches, and this a century latter, when nature taking over is erasing the last traces.
Jananne Al-Ani artist of Iraqi origin worked on Shadow Sites II (2011), a serie of aerial photographies over the Jordanian desert. Technology is used there to find traces not visible on the grounds. The military aspect impose itself with a Roman fortress of AD 200. Ancient military sites can thus be found again.
Jo Ractliffe South African photographer discovered the drama of Angola in the mid eighties Reading Another day of Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski. She presents two series that became books As terra do fim do mundo (2009-2010) and Terreno occupado 2007. She is looking for thin traces of yesterday wars in today's landscape.
An-My-Lê American photographer born in Saigon in 1960 is interested in 29 palms (2003-2004), a training camp for American marines fighting in Iraq. The critic Richard B Woodward writes « the pathetic in those realistic touches, only underline the grotesque and sad war games an abyssal distance from the reality of coming conflicts ».
With Serious game 4 a sun with no shadows (2010) Harun Farocki takes us to the heart of this new war photography that avoid the living to give us to see only the decor, the landscapes and the mapping of it.
« At the beginning video games prepare soldiers to fight; giving a catalogue of possible scenarios,others at the end try to lighten their traumatic souvenirs ,freeing them. In the therapeutic games made with lesser means objects and men dont have any shadows. Do we need shadows to remember ? Are there projected shadows in dreams? » Harun Farocki.
Collateral murder 17'47'' film circulated by WIKILEAKS in 2010 shows the American shooting from an Apache helipcopter in the spring of 2007 killing a Reuter Photographer and a driver among other civilians in Baghdad .
Outposts (2010) and British watchtowers (2005) are two series from Irish photographer Donovan Wylie ,in the time of wars these towers reminds us of archaic devices. The book Outposts will come out this september (Steidl).
Till Roeskens presents 4 short videos of maps and routes of the Israeli-Palestinian borders.
Eyal Weizman and Luc Delahaye, The space in this room is your interpretation (2011). Israeli soldiers not to be out on the streets of the cities go from house to house through walls and floors of Palestinians homes. This tactic of progression and occupation is named « Inversed Geometry », by the generals who like to quote Deleuze and Guettary...The Israeli army taking over the thoughts of these philosophers. The transgression of the domestic spaces by the army is a sign of state repression.The open breach in the wall, the physical incarnation of the « State of Emergency » Eyal Weizman.
At last Lets be honest, the weather helped (1998-2006) Walid Raad under the device of a fictional archives (Atlas Group) shows plates of the ruins of his country Lebanon, and gives a new geographical entity as alive as it is incomprehensible.
Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr
Exhibition
Topography of war
Until December 18th 2011
LE BAL
6 impasse de la Defence
75018 Paris
+33 (0)1 44 70 75 50
contact@le-bal.fr
wednesday-friday 12AM-8PM
Saturday11AM-8PM
Sunday 11AM-7PM
Thursday until 10PM
Catalogue
Topographies de la guerre
Text Jean Yves Jouannais
co-edition STEIDL/LE BAL
25 EURO
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