DRESDEN.- The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden are presenting, at three separate venues, three exhibitions devoted to war, threat, and destruction in the medium of photography.
Photographs of military force, destruction, and devastation shape our cultural memory. They have left an indelible mark on the stock of epoch-defining images of the 20th and 21st century and range, for instance, from pictures of the protective measures taken by Venetians in WWI to protect the most important monuments of their suddenly vulnerable city against aerial attacks, to the stylized shots taken in the thick of the action by Robert Capa, the ‘inventor’ of modern war photography, and up to the short- and long-term effects of violence, revealed by photographers as in “Conflict, Time, Photography”.
Conflict, Time, Photography
Albertinum
Conceived by Tate Modern, this exhibition illustrates how the events of war and their consequences have been captured and reflected in the medium of photography from the 19th century onwards. Historical photo-stories, documentary photographs, and works by contemporary photographers highlight the traces – both momentary and permanent, visible and obliterated – that each conflict leaves behind and which are inscribed, not only in the collective memory, but also in the actual places that once formed the backdrop for armed conflict. The images in the exhibition of people, places, and things stem from around the globe and from various epochs – ranging from the American Civil War to the Iraq War – and reveal the existential effects of violence and destruction as the bedrock of our modern civilization. The photographs on display here were taken moments, days, weeks, months, years, even decades after the events they variously record. In keeping with this chronology from immediacy to aftermath, the exhibition covers a time span that starts, for instance, with images created just seconds after the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, before moving on to photographic observations from the divided city of Cold-War Berlin, and ending with photographs of former WWI battle sites, taken 100 years after the fighting.
An exhibition presented by Tate Modern, London, in association with Museum Folkwang, Essen, and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Curated by Simon Baker in collaboration with Shoair Mavlian and David Alan Mellor.
Robert Capa. War Photographs 1943–1945
Kupferstich-Kabinett, Residenzschloss
Robert Capa’s war photographs have shaped the canon of the ‘spectacular image’, which came into being through the development of the mass media in the 20th century and continues to evolve. His work established the image’s immediacy – both lived and staged – as the badge of authenticity in photojournalism.
Featuring more than 110 photographs from the period 1943 to 1945 and the news magazines in which they were originally published, the exhibition traces the official war correspondent’s footsteps as he accompanied Allied forces through Europe. The Allies’ stated goal was to bring down the National-Socialist regime. Capa was assigned the task of documenting this military campaign, which resulted in the United States becoming the leading superpower. With their intention of documenting this ‘world history’ as it unfolded, they fed off the public’s thirst for prying, sensational images that remains unabated to this today. Capa’s shots of the Allied landings in Normandy on June 6th, 1944 – the day that would go down in history as D-Day – the liberation of Paris in September 1944, and the liberation of Leipzig in April 1945 were seen by millions around the globe.
With his motto: ‘If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough’ Capa, who died on May 25th, 1954 from stepping on a landmine in the First Indochina War, forged a photography of participation, of risk, and of voyeurism.
An exhibition curated by Michael Hering.
A City at War. Venice 1915–1918
Japanisches Palais
For centuries, the waters of the Venetian Lagoon sheltered the city of Venice, serving as a protective wall for the city’s inhabitants. In the early 20th century however, the development of new war technology brought with it an unfamiliar danger: aerial bombardment. This exhibition chronicles Venice’s unusual predicament in defending itself for the first time against imminent destruction from the air.
The photographs from the Archivio Storico Fotografico of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia reveal much about residents’ pride and confidence, their will to defend themselves, and their determination to prevent the destruction of their city. Furthermore, they document the struggle of life during wartime: individuals’ efforts to secure their own survival and the city’s attempts to maintain public life through its institutions.
The civilian and military efforts to save Venice’s cultural artefacts from air-raid destruction are poignant. One particularly moving scene shows men in dark suits witnessing, alongside women, children, sailors, and officers, the dismantling of the Horses of Saint Mark while helping to build the large sandbag barricades that lent the city such a strange appearance. Some of the photos on display document the failure of these efforts, as seen through damaged sculptures and paintings, such as the bombed dome of the Church of the Scalzi with its destroyed ceiling fresco by Giambattista Tiepolo.
