I am just off to see one of my favourite photographers at The Whitechapel, Walid Raad. I'll post later today to talk about the exhibition, until then....
What an exhibition! The Whitechapel have exceeded and surpassed all that I had hoped for in this show, as they curated over a decade of Raad's work in a beautiful, informative manner. The show brings together works that I have previously seen, notably the Deutsche Borse prize winning "We decided to let them say, 'we are convinced' twice." donated to the Atlas Group to ones like "Let's be honest, the weather helped". This one I found particularly beautiful as the pieces show 1970's buildings in Beirut that have been repeatedly shot at with varying degrees of force and differing military. Each image has been put into what appears to be a notebook and all the bullet holes have been highlighted with different coloured stickers. The width of the stickers is the exact diameter of the bullets fired at the subject, they also show the different countries armies. The images are striking both educationally and visually.
Other series that I found very inspirational were, "Oh God,' he said, talking to a tree" and "Secrets in the open sea" which consists of twenty-nine photographic prints that were found buried under rubble in the commercial districts of Beirut in the 1993 demolition. What you are presented with are six large prints in varying shades of blue, with a tiny picture in black and white in the bottom right hand corner. It is said that these prints were found and sent to a laboratory that then discovered the portrait images underneath. Whether this is fact or fiction, the outcome is truly outstanding. This body of work has given me much to think about and is great research material for my new work.
In fact this exhibition has been a breath of fresh air, it has to be one of the best shows I have seen in a very long time, thank you Walid Raad!
Images copyright Walid Raad, (Exhibition shot taken from the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.)
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