For example, during the Spanish Civil War, as the curator explains, the figure of the child-martyr: “The image of a little girl victim of bombing became a catalyst of the process. The exhibition thus shows the evolution of the manipulation of the image. RMN-Grand Palais / Émilie Cambier / Marc Riboud / Fonds Marc Riboud au MNAAG. As Anthony Petiteau pointed out, “photos taken during that period were reused and recontextualized by both pacifist and warmongering discourses.” “Young girl with a flower, demonstration against the war in Vietnam, Washington, United States, March for Peace, October 21, 1967.” © Marc Riboud, Paris – Musée de l’Armée, Dist. The objective was to keep a visual record of the massacres and the horrors of war, as remembrance and testimony. The overflow of images we experience today dates back to World War I. The viewer immediately wonders how much is real and how much is fake.” Denouncement or legitimization “Delacroix debunked the idea that ‘accuracy is truth’, when it comes to either a staged or action shots.” I asked myself those same questions and invited combatants in a war zone to replay their reality in reenactments inspired by the paintings of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. “I am interested in the construction of images of war and their reception in our societies,” explains the artist, photographer, and geopolitician, who has recently traveled to Ukraine to work on a sequel to his project on the Maidan Revolution. It is part of his series “Theater of War”, which revisits the relationship between pictorial art and photography. The exhibition opens with an image by Émeric Lhuisset showing Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq in 2012. The ten chronological themes address the social, cultural, economic, political, and military as well as aesthetic aspects of photography. The museum invites us to critically dissect the image: through the arts (drawings and paintings) and technical advances (glass plates, contact sheets, portraits, stereoscopic views, aerial photographs…). Reporting, informing, documenting, influencing, arousing emotion, mobilizing opinion: these are the key words that beat the drum of the history of war photography. Photograph with a Kurdish guerrilla group, Iraq, 2012.” © Émeric Lhuisset, Adagp, Paris 2022,Paris-Musée de l’Armée, Dist.RMN-Grand Palais Nothing escapes scrutiny: from the Siege of Rome in 1849 to the Crimean and Civil Wars, to World War I and II, the Vietnam War, the Spanish Civil War, to the Cold War and the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. A fast-forward through two centuries of photography offers an important lesson about those who make, shape, distribute, sell, and watch war images. The war waged at the gates of Europe accentuates this state of affairs: the same reality underlies two types of message generated by the opposing camps. “Even if these images represent similar subjects - ruins, destruction - as those familiar to us today, the context of their production always impacts the message these photographs convey.” “Producing a photograph in 1849 has a different meaning than in 2022,” notes Anthony Petiteau, one of the exhibition’s four co-curators. Just as the media is saturated with images of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, the exhibition allows us to recontextualize the complex relationship between photography and war. Complex relationships “Little boy in Malaga, 1936-1938.” © Gerda Grepp, Roger-Viollet, 2022. This very first presentation of the collections probes the history of images that permeate the collective memory. Over 300 photographs exhibited across some 700 square meters in ten thematic sequences survey the representation of conflicts, the development of the illustrated press, the construction of iconic images, the myth of the photojournalist, and the conquest of public opinion. Envisioned far in advance, but open to the public only since April 6, “Photography at War” invites visitors to discover and understand how media has influenced the way wars have been construed over time. RMN-Grand Palais / Pascal Segrette / DR.įew cultural events get as close to the heart of the tragedies unfolding in the news as the exhibition at the Musée de l’Armée at the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris. A non-commissioned officer of the 7th Infantry Regiment fell into a trap, two harpooned spikes pierced his foot, March 14, 1954.” © Fernand Jentile, Paris – Musée de l’Armée, Dist.
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