Broomberg & Chanarin at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg

South Africa Fri 07-01-2011

Broomberg & Chanarin at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg
By a Correspondent

OPENING AT GOODMAN GALLERY JOHANNESBURG
THURSDAY 20 JANUARY 2011 AT 18:00

20 JANUARY - 12 FEBRUARY 2011

South African born and UK based artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin series has produced in the past four years, People in trouble laughing pushed to the ground (2010), The Day Nobody Died (2008) and The Red House (2007), all located within zones of conflict; Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq respectively.

Image by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin | 2010

At times hauntingly beautiful and engagingly uncanny, People in trouble laughing pushed to the ground was produced by Broomberg and Chanarin in response to an invitation to work with the Belfast Exposed photographic archive in Northern Ireland. The archive, established by photojournalists around the beginning of the Troubles in the early 80s, is equally concerned with protests, funerals and acts of terrorism as it is with the more ordinary stuff of life drinking tea, kissing girls, watching trains.

In each instance, the presence of the archivist is discernable through a range of marks and incisions on the contact sheets. Broomberg and Chanarin acknowledge and thank the original photographers Mervyn Smith, Sean Mc Kernan, Gerry Casey, Seamus Loughran and all other contributing photographers to Belfast Exposed archive.

The Day Nobody Died was realised by Broomberg and Chanarin in June 2008 during a trip to Afghanistan, where they were embedded with British Army units on the front line in Helmand Province, arriving during the deadliest month of the war. On their first day a BBC fixer was dragged from his car and executed and nine Afghan soldiers were killed in a suicide attack.

The following day the number of British combat fatalities was pushed to 100, with casualties continuing until the fifth day when nobody died. In response to these, as well as a series of more mundane occurrences, Broomberg and Chanarin turned an armoured vehicle into a temporary darkroom, producing a series of peculiar abstract forms modulated by the heat and light, presenting an alternative to the photographic documentation of war.

The Red House is a series of 27 photographs of wall drawings and graphic marks made by Kurdish prisoners held in the former headquarters of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist party in northern Iraq. After the 1991 Kurdish uprising this notorious place of incarceration, torture and sometimes death, remained as a monument to the cruelty of war.

Cropped and isolated, there is no visual information other than these curious markings, revealing an unexpected bout of expression amidst the monotony, solitude and terror of captivity. History presents itself as a palimpsest writes author David Campany. The traces recorded by these photographs may relate to past events in the history of the Red House but nothing is settled in Iraq yet. While the photographs are fixed forever, these may not be the last marks made on these walls.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin have been collaborating for over a decade. They have produced six books, which in different ways examine the language of documentary photography; Trust (2000) accompanied their first solo-show at The Hasselblad Center; Ghetto (2003) a collection of their work as editors and principal photographers of Colors magazine, was exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum; Mr. Mkhize's Portrait (2004) documented South Africa ten years after apartheid and accompanied a solo show at The Photographer's Gallery; Chicago (2006), an exploration of contemporary Israel was published by SteidMACK in conjunction with a solo-show at The Stedelijk Museum; Fig which was published in Autumn 2007, also by Steidl, to accompany solo exhibitions at the John Hansard Gallery and Impressions Gallery, UK. The Red House (2007) is published by Steidl Editions.

Broomberg and Chanarin regularly teach workshops and give master classes in photography, as well as teaching on the MA in Documentary Photography at LCC in London and the MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York. They are the recipients of numerous awards, including the Vic Odden Award from the Royal Photographic Society.

For more information, please contact lara@goodman-gallery.com

T. +27 (0)11 788 1113 | F. +27 (0)11 788 9887| www.goodman-gallery.com
163 Jan Smuts Ave Parkwood, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2193

GALLERY HOURS: Tuesdays - Fridays 09:30 - 17h30, Saturdays 09:30 - 16:00, Closed

Posted By: Diana Achieng

skip to top

Related Links

Broomberg & Chanarin

Broomberg and Chanarin Exhibition at Goodman Gallery

Your Comments

skip to top

African Artists Portfolios

Innocent Nkurunziza is a Mixed Media Artist

Click To View All African Artist Portfolios

Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery

Shades of Time: An exhibition by Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery National Museum of Kenya

News By Regions

Featured Artist Portfolio

Title: Making Ways
Name: Tabitha Wa Thuku
Country: Kenya
Medium: Mixed media on heavy canvas
Size: 149 X 140 cms
Click here to view