Nubar Alexanian
Here is Nubar Alexanian (in gold shirt) talking with Joe Massey, a great Atlanta art patron and photography enthusiast. In between them is Nubar's portrait of Lynndie England, one of the most infamous participants in the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. Alexanian's stunning B&Wphotographs were taken on the set of filmmaker Errrol Morris's documentary-in- progress
Standard Operating Procedure. These photos (portraits of military personnel and recreations of torture scenes) were selected to establish a historical link with Fletcher's exhibition, stirring emotions and questions
about past and present military engagements, casualties, and pain.
To check out and pre-order NONFICTION, the book that documents fifteen years of Nubar's work with Errol Morris see:
The Blog begins
Stuart Horodner here. I'm excited to launch this blog which will offer curatorial notes on current or upcoming exhibitions, images, interviews, quotes, links, and questions about art and visual culture.
This is an opportunity for me to share in a casual but considered way. My hope is that it will bring you a bit closer to the process of what we are doing here at the Contemporary and why; providing a kind of insider's look at intentions, outcomes, successes and failures, and considerations of context and community.
This image shows a young woman looking at Harrell Fletcher's installation of The American War, a troubling collection of images that were re-photographed at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Other works in the show include a shelf of "fake" books (all sides of actual books about Vietnam from the Atlanta Public Library that are xeroxed and taped together) and a giant billboard showing stacks of similar books photographed at a Los Angeles library. Fletcher's project is a consciousness raising project, asking viewers to consider some of the same questions he wrestled with during his stay in Vietnam, and in he months afterwards. What do we know about Vietnam? How are our opinions shaped by political leaders, educators, filmmakers, activists, family members? How does our knowledge of that war influence our feelings about other governmental policies and conflicts?
