Re: [-empyre-] Abu Ghraib and the image

[Gianni Wise <gana@iinet.net.au>]

Hi all ... in reference to  the  Abu Ghraib images maybe this can  
contribute a little to he debate:
firstly perhaps the question should not really whether it is art but  
whether these images should be made accessable to art or media - what  
right have we to possess these images of the defamed bodies of these  
men? Too much art just mimics the trauma or the memory of the event -  
as do the horror film that exploits with fear triggers.

Art is best used not so much as a bare witness or mere re-narration  
but as presenting trauma as a political phenomena.

By mimicking the act of trauma through multiple reproduction of the  
images from Iraq we may just be acting against the interests of those  
victims - what is it we imagine we are doing? adding to some  
"awareness"? or simply maintaining the cycle of violence between  
victim and perpetrators and onlooker (voyeur)
secondly do we ask the victim for permission for usage of these  
images? or perhaps the soldier/ tourist/photograher?
Gianni Wise


On 22/07/2006, at 6:54 PM, Susana Mendes Silva wrote:

> John,
>
> I think you made same confusion...
>
> "G.H. Hovagimyan wrote:
> > If you look at the video and photos from Abu Ghraib they are art  
> > works, albeit rather twisted."
>
> And I asked to G.H. this:
>
> "I find this sentence quite intriguing. Why this images are art  
> works for you? Because you find in them some aesthetical value?  
> Because they mimic the "transgressive art that is part of a fairly  
> standard Avant-garde position essentially épatez du bourgeois"?  
> They seem to me like war trophies..."
>
> I am also asking you this because in 1999, for a work called  
> "Vigilante" I looked for images of east timorese being tortured by  
> indonesean police agents. I never saw these images like art...I  
> could not do it."
>
> The quotes you use in your post are not mine. Because the next  
> posts are not mine, but from G.H. and another one from Christina.
>
>
> susana mendes silva
>
>
>
>
> On Jul 21, 2006, at 9:37 PM, John Haber wrote:
>
> > My take is a lot going on here in the thread, too much at once  
> > really.  Do I
> > follow that this began when SMS said that the infamous photos from  
> > Abu
> > Ghraib show the ability of art to alter awareness and thus  
> > events?  Then GH
> > expressed puzzlement at the example because it had to assume those  
> > images
> > are art, and he asked if SMS is taking them as art because of  
> > their visceral
> > power?  Then SMS said that art is what artists say it is, and  
> > noted that
> > Richard Serra had made it art?  And Christina gave more context,
> > particularly in the controversy over Amy Wilson's drawing?  So  
> > where do I
> > start...
>
>
>
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