Whatever you do, don’t call them war artists. Commentators, pacifists, satirists, politically motivated agitators. But not war artists.
The Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England, has assembled the works of more than forty artists made since the First Gulf War of 1990-1991 in an exhibition entitled “Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War”.
“I would never call them war artists and the people in the exhibition would be very reluctant to be called that because it has an association with a kind of sanctioned view,” says Sara Bevan, the curator of the show, which opened on October 12. “Most of them are artists who happened to make art about war.”
All of the contributions have been either commissioned or acquired by the Imperial War Museum, and are part of a collection of more than 5,000 works which date back to First World War when the British government first sent official war artists to the front.
The IWM selection reflects the changes in techniques since 1991 as well as the evolving attitudes of the artists.
“I think, maybe that the problem is thinking of war as being about the action or about the military,” Bevan says. “Much of the work is broader than that. It looks at the civilian experience, even the experience of watching events unfold through the media, and questions the negativity of conflict.
“We chose the First Gulf War as the starting point because it is contemporary, and also because I think, within our own commissioning, there has been a shift towards artists who had a personal response to conflict rather than making a record. They are more political now, perhaps.”
The exhibition features the work of several Middle East artists such as Iraqi-born Jananne Al Ani, whose formal portraits of her family are contrasted with events in the Second Gulf War, and London-based Rasheed Araeen, who superimposed an image of Saddam Hussain, posing on a white horse, over a TV screen depicting United States’ general Norman Schwarzkopf.
One of the most moving is a lament at the Holocaust with Israeli Ori Gersht’s elegiac video, “Will You Dance For Me?” (2011) — an elderly lady’s recollections of being forced to dance in the snow by her Nazi captors.
The plight of the people living in Gaza is wryly depicted in “GH0809” (2010) by Palestinian Taysir Batniji, who describes houses, bombed by the Israelis, in the style of a real estate prospectus.
One lists the attributes of a property in banal detail — the size of the three rooms, the kitchen, the two bathrooms — and describes it as having a “Quiet environment, beautiful exposure. Inhabitants: 8 people”.
It is a pile of rubble. The viewer is left to reflect on the fate of the eight.
British photographer Edmund Clark’s bleakly matter-of-fact “Guantanomo: If the Light Goes out” (2010) shows a tube for force-feeding prisoners on a table alongside cans of the protein shake “Ensure”, which have the label “completely balanced, nutritious”.
Bevan argues that it has become increasingly difficult to pinpoint the boundaries, both geographical and temporal, in contemporary conflict.
“The nature of war has changed. The war on terror, for example, or drone attacks are much too difficult to encapsulate in photojournalism because it is less easy to see,” she says. “With art, it works really well in terms of looking at the issues which surround those conflicts.”
One example is Steve McQueen’s “Queen and Country” (2007), with its sheets of stamps bearing photographic portraits of British service personnel killed in Iraq, while the interactive installation “The House of Osama bin Laden” (2003), by Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell, allows visitors to use a joystick to zoom in and out and scan the building, as if searching for the fugitive.
“Photo Op” (2007) by Kennardphillipps — Peter Kennard and Cat Picton-Phillipps — is that most ubiquitous of modern technological fads, the “selfie”. It portrays former British prime minister Tony Blair taking a snap of himself in front of a huge explosion and reflects the anger the pair felt at the government going to war in Iraq in 2003.
“This would not have been made in the era of the official war artists,” Kennard and Picton-Phillipps say. “They had a role when an army was going to war for a national effort and when the public was actively involved on the front line, but in contemporary wars, the only public involvement is through opinion, unless you have a member of the family in the military. Painting is more of a direct, emotional response whereas much of the exhibition demonstrates how technology is used as a thinking tool.”
“Photo Op” is as eye-catching in its outrage as John Keane’s paintings are graphic in its “direct, emotional response”.
Keane fulfilled the role of the “traditional” war artist when he was commissioned by the IWM to join the troops in the First Gulf War. His work is represented by “Death Squad”, a dramatic depiction of a soldiers stumbling along, straining as they carry a body bag.
Sara Bevan comments: “John Keane probably marked the shift from war artist to those who make art about war. The work of his that we are showing is perhaps not overtly political, although it has a sense of criticism in it. Some of his other work from the commission, which is not in the show, is definitely quite political but not as extreme as Kennardphillipps’s.”
Keane says: “I had to bear in mind that this was a public relations exercise. I had to go where the military were, but my brief was certainly not to do propaganda. As a photographer, you basically record what is in front of you but with paint you can play around with images. It’s subjective, of course it is, but political? Not really. I just liked to stand back and try to understand what’s going on.”
A Russian saying has it: “When the guns talk the muses fall silent.” As this exhibition shows, the guns can also be a catalyst.
Richard Holledge is a writer based in London.
“Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War” is on show at Imperial War Museum North, Manchester, until February 23.
