Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Art of Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin


Take a look at Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin’s most recent show PEOPLE IN TROUBLE LAUGHING PUSHED TO THE GROUND.

It features stark black and white images that contain wisps of thoughts. Like spastic ejaculations of incomplete sentences, these photos leave you yearning for what is hovering just beyond the frame.

Taken from the massive Belfast Exposed archive that dates back to 1983 and features nearly half a million images that document the city’s tumultuous and often violent past. The duo digs through past photos and erases moments, obscures a face, or changes the context to create a ghostly series that goes beyond the violence to create something wholly unique.

Images of an arm, now a man running, then children playing sports, cut to a crowd, a hand, and now a close up of a field. The photos fly at you like a Burroughs mash up when he is in the midst of an acid-fueled hallucinogenic reverie.

In short they’ve turned a largely straightforward documentation of history into a truly unique series that mixes melancholy, joy, and grief in a powerful milieu.

Be sure to head over to Paradise Row to see the full collection.


No comments:

Post a Comment