Conflict, Time, Photography
Tate Modern: Exhibition
26 November 2014 – 15 March 2015
Among the artists: Jerzy Lewczynski, Agata Madejska
Artists included in the exhibition are: Pierre Antony-Thouret, Nobuyoshi Araki, George Barnard, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Luc Delahaye, Matsumoto Eiichi, Roger Fenton, Jim Goldberg, Toshio Fukada, Kikuji Kawada, An-My Lê, Jerzy Lewczynski, Emeric L’huisset, Agata Madejska, Diana Matar, Chloe Dewe Mathews, Don McCullin, Susan Meiselas, Simon Norfolk, João Penalva, Walid Raad, Jo Ratcliffe, Sophie Ristelhueber, Julian Rosefeldt, Hrair Sarkissian, Michael Schmidt, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Indre Serpytyte, Stephen Shore, Harry Shunk, Taryn Simon, Shomei Tomatsu, Hiromi Tsuchida, Paul Virilio, Nick Waplington and Jane and Louise Wilson.
From the seconds after a bomb is detonated to a former scene of battle years after a war has ended, this moving exhibition focuses on the passing of time, tracing a diverse and poignant journey through over 150 years of conflict around the world, since the invention of photography.
In an innovative move, the works are ordered according to how long after the event they were created from moments, days and weeks to decades later. Photographs taken seven months after the fire bombing of Dresden are shown alongside those taken seven months after the end of the First Gulf War. Images made in Vietnam 25 years after the fall of Saigon are shown alongside those made in Nakasaki 25 years after the atomic bomb. The result is the chance to make never-before-made connections while viewing the legacy of war as artists and photographers have captured it in retrospect.
The immediate trauma of war can be seen in the eyes of Don McCullin’s Shell-shocked US Marine 1968, while the destruction of buildings and landscapes are documented by Simon Norfolk’s Afghanistan: Chronotopia 2001.
Different conflicts will also reappear from multiple points in time throughout the exhibition. The Second World War for example is addressed in Jerzy Lewczynski’s 1960 photographs of the Wolf’s Lair / Adolf Hitler’s War Headquarters, Shomei Tomatsu’s images of objects found in Nagasaki, Kikuji Kawada’s epic project The Map made in Hiroshima in the 1960s, Michael Schmidt’s Berlin streetscapes from 1980 and Nick Waplington’s 1993 close-ups of cell walls from a Prisoner of War camp in Wales.
The exhibition is staged to coincide with the 2014 centenary and concludes with new and recent projects by British, German, Polish and Syrian photographers which reflect on the First World War a century after it began.
Organised by Tate Modern, London in association with Museum Folkwang, Essen and Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
Related events
Talks and lectures
Susan Meiselas in conversation with Simon Baker
Thursday 27 November 2014, 18.30 – 20.00
Curator’s tour and private view: Conflict, Time, Photography
Wednesday 3 December 2014, 18.30 – 20.30
BSL Tour: Conflict, Time, Photography
Friday 6 February 2015, 19.00 – 20.00
Photographing History: Conflict, Time, Photography artists in conversation with Simon Baker
Monday 16 February 2015, 18.30 – 20.30
Curator’s Tour and Private View: Conflict, Time, Photography
Monday 23 February 2015, 18.30 – 20.30
Artist Talk: Nick Waplington
Friday 6 March 2015, 18.30 – 20.00
Performance and music
War Primer 2 by Broomberg & Chanarin
Monday 26 January 2015, 18.30 – 20.30
Film
Harun Farocki: Images of the World and the Inscription of War
Friday 30 January 2015, 19.00 – 21.00
John Gianvito: Vapor Trail (Clark)
Sunday 1 February 2015, 14.00 – 19.00
Serge Bozon: La France
Friday 6 February 2015, 19.00 – 21.00
Nobuhiro Suwa: H Story
Friday 13 February 2015, 19.00 – 21.30
Romuald Karmakar: The Himmler Project
Sunday 15 February 2015, 15.00 – 18.00
Private view
Teachers’ private view: Marlene Dumas and Conflict, Time, Photography
Monday 9 February 2015, 18.30 – 20.30