Tag: afghanistan

Exhibition: ‘RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta: Observation’ at Foam, Amsterdam

Exhibition dates: 2nd September – 26th October 2011

Foam Paul Huf Award 2011

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Fragile, Blood 1' 2010

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Fragile, Blood 1
2010
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

 

Antipersonnel. The positive pleasure of inflicting cruelty at an ambiguous physical and ethical distance. UseĀ limited only by the imagination of the user. Detonated remotely using a laptop computer. 10 million times.Ā US$3 each.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to Foam for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Domestic Slavery, Angha' 2006

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Domestic Slavery, Angha
2006
Ā© RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

 

Domestic Slavery,Ā 2006

Cold, distant images of building facades are associated with text. The narratives are written by Ondine Millot to describe the events that took place at the exact address of the buildings in the photographs. The spectator comes to understand that the series deals with an often undocumented consequence of human trafficking: modern slavery.

The images force us to come to terms with the upsetting reality that is hidden behind the ordinary facades. Raphaƫl Dallaporta denounces unbearable situations where one human being reduces another to the status of thing, and gives it depth through the distance of the photographs and his refusal to sensationalise.

Text from the MusƩe NicƩphore NiƩpce website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Domestic Slavery, Henriette' 2006

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Domestic Slavery, Henriette
2006
Ā© RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Ruins (Season 1), The Balkh-AB gorges, Afghanistan' 2011

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Ruins (Season 1), The Balkh-AB gorges, Afghanistan
2011
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

 

Ruin, Season 1,Ā 2011

In the autumn of 2010, RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta took part in an archaeological mission in the Bactriane region in Afghanistan, scene of Alexander the Great’s mythical conquest. Using a drone he designed himself, he took aerial photographs of endangered or heretofore unknown archaeological sites in a country at war. The remote controlled device was timed to take photos of unrivalled precision every five seconds. The way the images are put together with their voluntarily asymmetrical contours depict these inaccessible monuments and places at their best. The most cutting-edge technology reveals the artist’s themes ā€“ destruction, the precariousness of things. It brings to light that which was and is no longer. Is this not the very definition of all photography?

Text from the MusƩe NicƩphore NiƩpce website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Fragile, "Four Moods", Black Bile'Ā  2010

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Fragile, “Four Moods”, Black BileĀ 
2010
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

 

Fragile,Ā 2010

RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta photographs organs, like the encyclopaedic colour plates for an anatomy class. The legend, again, explains the origins of these silent images. The organ represented is not the issue; the reason for its presence on the slab is the issue. The apparent neutrality of the shot, according to a strict protocol (frontal shot, on a black background enabling the strong lighting of the “subject”), isolates each fragment of the body as a clue that enables to determine the cause of death. These relics of flesh and bone have a real role to play. But the way they are shot lends them a metaphysical and philosophical dimension that reminds us of lifeā€™s ephemeral nature and human vulnerability.

Text from the MusƩe NicƩphore NiƩpce website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Fragile, Cardiopulmonary system' 2010

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Fragile, Cardiopulmonary system
2010
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

Undetermined circumstances

The body of the subject whose presumed identity is …, aged 92, was found in a ditch around 10.05am by a walker whose attention had been attracted by his dog.

The autopsy that we carried out on the body showed the presence of a state of extremely advanced putrefaction with partial skeletonisation, consistent with a death dating back one month in an outdoor environment; it is not possible to be more precise. There is no immediately detectable cause of death. No lesions suggesting recent detectable violence were observed. As for identification, the deceased is an adult male, wearing a pacemaker and an old surgical scar on the abdominal wall.

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Fragile, Pacemaker' 2010

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Fragile, Pacemaker
2010
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

 

French photographer RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta (b. 1980) received the Foam Paul Huf Award earlier this year from an international jury. The prize is organised by Foam and is awarded annually to up and coming international photographers below the age of 35. A major aspect of the award is an exhibition. Observation appears at Foam from 2 September to 26 October. Characteristic of the show’s four series is the clinical, perceptive style of photography. Dallaporta’s photos possess an inner tension that stems from the beauty of the object and the serious tone of the subject. The photographer works intensively with specialists in fields relating to his series. Jury chair FranƧois HĆ©bel (director of Les Rencontres d’Arles international photography festival) comments on Dallaporta’s work that ‘He combines involvement with a highly analytical approach to social perversities. His uncompromising, conceptual and extremely creative approach mark him as an authentic artist who stands out in the young generation of photographers.’

The landmines in the Antipersonnel series have an exquisite beauty: small, with pleasant colours and an attractive form. Elegantly photographed, simply framed and persuasively presented, their aesthetic quality is what first attracts attention. Until we realise the full purpose of their existence: pure cruelty.

Fragile features frontal and objective shots of organs and limbs taken from corpses. Dallaporta worked with a team of forensic surgeons for this series. While the physicians were looking for causes of death, Dallaporta recorded the body parts they examined and the instruments they used. The power of this work comes from the combination of apparently neutral images and texts relating to human pain.

Dallaporta also worked with experts when making Ruins. He travelled with a team of French archaeologists to Afghanistan. Using a drone ā€“ a small remote-controlled helicopter ā€“ he took numerous photos of the war-ravaged landscape. In combination, these form a single large aerial picture that also shows traces of ancient civilisations. Past and present come together in this series of almost scientific photos.

In Domestic Slavery, Dallaporta (pictures) and Ondine Millot (text) tackle the tragic reality of this phenomenon: people, many unregistered migrants, held against their will in places where their voice cannot be heard. While their names have been altered, the stories are true. Dallaporta’s clinical, unsentimental pictures of the buildings in which these modern-day slaves are kept testify to the banality of day-to-day inhumanity.

Text from the Foam website

 

Antipersonnel,Ā 2004

Unknown objects seem to emerge from the darkness. The legend quickly informs us that they are anti-personnel mines. Raphaƫl Dallaporta deals with the object reproduced to scale and lets us imagine the consequences of its existence. There are no bloody reportage images to illustrate the mutilations caused by these devices. The photographer presents us with contemporary still life that appear inoffensive but that tend to be aestheticised by photographic techniques all the better to erase the actual use of the object.

Text from the MusƩe NicƩphore NiƩpce website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Antipersonnel, Blast Mine Type 72B China' 2004

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Antipersonnel, Blast Mine Type 72B China
2004
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

Type 72 blast mines are said to make up 100 million of China’s 110 million antipersonnel landmine stockpiles (Chinese officials claim this figure is exaggerated). Manufactured by China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO), Type-72s are reportedly priced at US$3 each. The Type-72B includes an anti-handling mechanism that makes it impossible to neutralise ā€“ if the mine is moved more than 8Āŗ from the horizontal, it will explode, amputating the limb that activated it.

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Antipersonnel, Submunition BLU-Ā­3/B USA' 2004

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Antipersonnel, Submunition BLU-Ā­3/B USA
2004
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

On release from a CBU-2C.A bomb this 785 g submunition ā€“ known as the “Pineapple” ā€“ is stabilised and slowed in its descent by six fins. Each CBU-2C/A contains 409 BLU-3/Bs, of which nearly 25 percent do not explode on impact. d: 73mm W: 785g

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Antipersonnel, Bounding Fragmentation Mine M-16, USA' 2004

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Antipersonnel, Bounding Fragmentation Mine M-16, USA
2004
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

When detonated the M-16 antipersonnel bounding fragmentation mine is shot up approximately 1.5m in the air and explodes within 0.5 seconds, creating a lethal radius of 10m. Nicknamed the “Bouncing Betty,” each mine is supplied with four tripwires (two olive-green, two sand-coloured) and a wrench. In September 2002 (the most recent statistics available) the USA had 465,330 M16s in stock.

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Antipersonnel, Directional Fragmentation Mine M-18/A1, USA' 2004

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Antipersonnel, Directional Fragmentation Mine M-18/A1, USA
2004
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

A “Claymore” directional fragmentation mine releases 700 steel balls when detonated by a hand-turned dynamo, a tripwire or, when used with the “Matrix” system, remotely using a laptop computer. (Multiple Claymores can also be linked together using a detonator cord.) A 1996 Department of the Army filed manual states that, “the number of ways in which the Claymore may be employed is limited only by the imagination of the user.” In September 2002 (the most recent available statistics), Claymores made up 403,096 of the 10,404,148 landmines stockpiled by the USA.

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980) 'Antipersonnel Bounding Fragmentation Mine, V-69, Italy' 2004

 

RaphaĆ«l DallaportaĀ (French, b. 1980)
Antipersonnel Bounding Fragmentation Mine, V-69, Italy
2004
Ā©Ā RaphaĆ«l Dallaporta

 

Antipersonnel Bounding Fragmentation Mine, V-69, Italy. The V-69 can be set off by footfall pressure or through a tripwire. When detonated the fuse sets off propellant gases that fire the mine’s inner body 45cm above the ground. This explodes sending out more than 1,000 pieces of chopped steel. Between 1982 and 1985, its manufacturer Valsella sold around 9 million V-69s to Iraq. The mine was given a nickname by Iraqi minelayers: the “Broom”. 120mm, 3.2kg.

 

 

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Review: ‘Framing Conflict ā€“ Iraq and Afghanistan’ exhibition by Lyndell Brown and Charles Green at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 5th November, 2008 – 1st February, 2009

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'Afghan traders with soldiers, market, Tarin Kowt base, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan.' 2007-2008 from the exhibition 'Framing Conflict ā€“ Iraq and Afghanistan' exhibition by Lyndell Brown and Charles Green at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, Nov 2008 - Feb 2009

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
Afghan traders with soldiers, market, Tarin Kowt base, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
2007-2008
From The approaching storm series 2007-2009
Digital colour inkjet photograph
155 Ɨ 107.5cm

 

 

Despite one brilliant photograph and some interesting small painted canvases this exhibition is a disappointment. No use beating around the figurative bush in the landscape so to speak, talking plainly will suffice. Firstly, let’s examine the photographs. Thirteen large format colour photographs are presented in the exhibition out of an archive of “thousands of photographs Brown and Green created on tour”1 from which the paintings are derived.

Most of the photographs are inconsequential and need not have been taken. Relying on the usual trope of painters who take photographs they are shot at night, dusk or dawn when the shadows are long, the colours lush supposedly adding ‘mystique’ to the scene being portrayed. In some cases they are more like paintings than the paintings themselves. Perhaps this was the artist’s plan, the reverse marriage of photography and painting where one becomes the other, but this does little to advance photography as art. There is nothing new or interesting here: sure, some of the photographs are beautiful in the formal representation of a vast and fractured landscape but the pre-visualisation is weak: bland responses to the machines, industry, people and places of the conflict. Go look at the Andreas Gursky photographs at the National Gallery of Victoria to see world-class photography taking reality to the limit, head on.

Too often in these thirteen images the same image is repeated with variants ā€“ three images of the an aircraft having it’s propeller changed show a lack of ideas or artefacts to photograph ā€“ presented out of the thousands taken seems incongruous. The fact that only one photograph is reproduced in the catalogue is also instructive.

Some images are just unsuccessful. For example the photograph Dusk, ship’s bridge with two sailors, northern Gulf is of a formulaic geometry that neither holds the viewers attention nor gives a deeper insight into their lives aboard ship and begs the question why was the photograph taken in the first place? The dark space has little physical or metaphysical illumination and seems purely to be an exercise in formalism. The photograph Dusk, ships’ bridge with sailor, northern Gulf is more successful in the use of light and shade as they play across the form of a sailor, his head resting pensively in his hand, red life vests adding a splash of colour to the bottom right of the photograph.

The brilliant photograph of the group is View from Chinook, Helmand province, Afghanistan. This really is a monstrous photograph. With the large black mass of the helicopter in the foreground of the image containing little detail, the eye is drawn upwards to the windscreen through which a mountain range rises, with spines like the back of a Stegosaurus. To the right a road, guarded by a desolate looking pillbox and yellow barrier, meanders into the distance. Dead flies on the windscreen look like small bullet holes until you realise what they are. This is the image that finally evidences a disquieting beauty present in the vast and ancient landscape.

Turning to the paintings we can say that some of the small 31cm x 31cm paintings work well. From an ‘original’ photograph the artist selects and crops a final image that they work up into a highly detailed oil painting. Distilled (as the artist’s like to put it) from the ‘original’ photographs, the paintings become a “merging of a contemporary sense of composition ā€“ borrowed from photography, film and video ā€“ with the textures and processes of traditional oil painting.”2

“These works were developed by the artists to be something akin to “Hitchcockian clues” which create the sense of looking out at a scene but being distanced from the action. To some degree the entire suite of small pictures participate in developing this intrigue, by showing an array of ambiguous scenes in which direct action is never present, or is obscured by limited perspectives … The artists noted that the war zones they witnessed were low in action but high in tension”3

To an extent this tension builds in some of the small paintings: the small size lends an intimate, intense quality and forces the viewer to engage with highly detailed renditions of textures of clothing, material, skin and hair and the distorted scale of the ships and aeroplanes portrayed. In these intense visions the painting seems less like a photograph and more like a new way of seeing. However, this occurs only occasionally within the group of small paintings.

If we think of a photograph in the traditional sense as a portrayal of reality, then a distillation of that photograph (the removal of impurities from, an increase in the concentration of) must mean that these paintings are a double truth, a concentrated essence of the ‘original’ photograph that changes that essence into something new. Unfortunately most of these small canvases show limited viewpoints of distilled landscapes that do not lead to ambiguous enigmas, but to the screen of the camera overlaid by a skein of paint, a patina of posing.

This feeling is only amplified in the three large ‘History’ paintings. The three paintings seem static, lifeless, over fussy and lacking insight into the condition of the ‘machine’ that they are attempting to portray. It’s a bit like the ‘Emperors New Clothes’, the lack of substance in the paintings overlaid with the semantics of History painting (“a traditional genre that focused on mythological, biblical, historical and military subjects”) used to confirm their existence and supposed insight into the doubled, framed reality. As Robert Nelson noted in his review of 2008 art in Melbourne in The Age newspaper it would seem that painting is sliding into terminal decline. These paintings only seem to confirm that view.

Here was a golden opportunity to try something fresh in terms of war as conflict ā€“ both in photography and painting ā€“ to frame the discourse in an eloquent, innovative manner. Most of this work is not interesting because it does not seem to be showing, or being discursive about anything beyond a personal whim. Because an artist can talk about some things, doesn’t mean that he can make comments about other things that have any value. Although the artist was looking to portray landscapes of globalisation and entropy, there are more interesting ways of doing this, rather than the nature of the transcription used here.

“It is very good to copy what one sees: it is much better to draw what you can’t see any more but in your memory. It is a transformation in which imagination and memory work together. You only reproduce what struck you, that is to say, the necessary. That way your memory and your fantasy are freed from the tyranny of nature.”4

No thinking but the putting away of intellect and the reliance on memory and imagination, memory and fantasy to ‘distil’ the essence. This is what needed to happen both in the photographs and paintings ā€“ leaving posturing aside (perhaps an ‘unofficial war artist’ would have had more success!) to uncover the transformation of landscape that the theatre of this environment richly deserves.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

Footnotes

1/ Heywood, Warwick. Framing Conflict: Iraq and Afghanistan exhibition catalogue. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 2008, p. 6
2/ Heywood, Warwick. Framing Conflict: Iraq and Afghanistan exhibition catalogue. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 2008, p. 6
3/ Heywood, Warwick. Framing Conflict: Iraq and Afghanistan exhibition catalogue. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 2008, p. 11
4/ Degas, Edgar quoted in Halligan, Marion. “Between the brushstrokes,” in A2 section, The Saturday Age newspaper, January 17th 2008, p. 18


Many thankx to The Ian Potter Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'Afghan National Army perimeter post with chair, Tarin Kowt base, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan' 2007-2008 from the exhibition 'Framing Conflict ā€“ Iraq and Afghanistan' exhibition by Lyndell Brown and Charles Green at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, Nov 2008 - Feb 2009

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
Afghan National Army perimeter post with chair, Tarin Kowt base, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
2007-2008
From The approaching storm series 2007-2009
Digital colour inkjet photograph
111.5 Ɨ 151.5cm

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'Dusk, ship's bridge with two sailors, northern Gulf' 2007-2008

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
Dusk, ship’s bridge with two sailors, northern Gulf
2007-2008
Digital colour inkjet photograph

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'Late afternoon, flight line, military installation, Middle East' 2007

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
Late afternoon, flight line, military installation, Middle East
2007
Oil on linen

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'Market, Camp Holland, Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan' 2007

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
Market, Camp Holland, Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
2007
Oil on linen

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'View from Chinook, Helmand province, Afghanistan' 2007-2008

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
View from Chinook, Helmand province, Afghanistan
2007-2008
From The approaching storm series 2007-2009
Digital colour inkjet photograph
111.5 Ɨ 151.5cm

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'View from Chinook, Helmand province, Afghanistan' 2007

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
View from Chinook, Helmand province, Afghanistan
2007
Oil on linen

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'Trolley, propeller change, on flightline at night, military installation, Gulf' 2007-2008

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
Trolley, propeller change, on flightline at night, military installation, Gulf
2007-2008
From The approaching storm series 2007-2009
Digital colour inkjet photograph
87.0 Ɨ 87.4cm

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953) 'History painting: market, Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan' 2007

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
History painting: market, Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan
2007
Oil on linen

 

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green. Installation view of photographs from the exhibition 'Framing Conflict' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne

 

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green
Installation view of photographs from the exhibition Framing Conflict at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne
2009

 

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green. Installation view of paintings from the exhibition 'Framing Conflict' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne 2009

 

Lyndell Brown (Australian, b. 1961) and Charles Green (Australian, b. 1953)
Installation view of paintings from the exhibition Framing Conflict at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne
2009

 

 

The Ian Potter Museum of Art
The University of Melbourne,
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