Picturing atrocity: photography in crisis
London:
Reaktion Books
(2012), 319 pp., many illustr.
ISBN 978-1-86189-872-2 (pbk)
"From the massacre of the Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee to the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, from famine in China to apartheid in South Africa, Picturing Atrocity examines a broad spectrum of photographs. Each of the essays focuses specifically on an iconic image, offering a distinct approach and context, in order to enable us to look again; and this time more closely at the picture. In addition, four photo-essays showcase the work of photographers involved in the making of photographs of brutality as well as the artists' own reflections on these images. Together these essays cover the historical and geographical range of atrocity photographs and respond to current concerns about such disturbing images; they probe why we as viewers feel compelled to look even when our instinct might be to look away." (Publisher)
Contents
Introduction / Jay Prosser, 7
I: RESPONSE AND RESPONSIBILITY
Words Can Kill: Haiti and the Vocabulary of Disaster / Rebecca Solnit, 17
Visible and Invisible Scars of Wounded Knee / Mick Gidley, 25
Severed Hands: Authenticating Atrocity in the Congo, 1904-13 / Christina Twomey, 39
Atrocity and Action: The Performative Force of the Abu Ghraib Photographs / Peggy Phelan, 51
II: BECOMING ICONIC
Photographing Atrocity: Becoming Iconic? / Griselda Pollock, 65
The Iconography of Famine / David Campbell, 79
A Single Image of Famine in China / D. J. Clark, 93
History at a Standstill: Agency and Gender in the Image of Civil Rights / Elizabeth Abel, 105
III: PHOTOGRAPHING ATROCITY
Body on a Hillside / Susan Meiselas, 117
Crossfire / Shahidul Alam, 123
IV: CIRCULATION AND PUBLIC CULTURE
The Iconic Image of the Mushroom Cloud and the Cold War Nuclear Optic / Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, 135
The Girl in the Photograph: The Visual Legacies of War / Nancy K. Miller, 147
Atrocity, the "As If," and Impending Death from the Khmer Rouge / Barbie Zelizer, 155
The Falling Man / Tom Junod, 167
V: ORDINARY ATROCITIES
Street Photographs in Crisis: Cernauti, Romania, c. 1943 / Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, 179
Picturing the Perpetrator / Paul Lowe, 189
War Trophy Photographs: Proof or Pornography? / Hilary Roberts, 201
Picturing an "Ordinary Atrocity": The Sharpeville Massacre / Darren Newbury, 209
VI: ATROCITY ASKANCE
Looking Askance / Geoffrey Batchen, 227
Documentary Pictorial: Luc Delahaye's Taliban, 2001 / Mark Durden, 241
The Execution Portrait / Ariella Aopulay, 249
Toward a Hyperphotography / Fred Ritchin, 261
VII: THE AFTERLIFE OF PHOTOGRAPHS
Lament of the Images / Alfredo Jaar and David Levi Strauss, 275
Photographic Interference / Lorie Novak, 283
I: RESPONSE AND RESPONSIBILITY
Words Can Kill: Haiti and the Vocabulary of Disaster / Rebecca Solnit, 17
Visible and Invisible Scars of Wounded Knee / Mick Gidley, 25
Severed Hands: Authenticating Atrocity in the Congo, 1904-13 / Christina Twomey, 39
Atrocity and Action: The Performative Force of the Abu Ghraib Photographs / Peggy Phelan, 51
II: BECOMING ICONIC
Photographing Atrocity: Becoming Iconic? / Griselda Pollock, 65
The Iconography of Famine / David Campbell, 79
A Single Image of Famine in China / D. J. Clark, 93
History at a Standstill: Agency and Gender in the Image of Civil Rights / Elizabeth Abel, 105
III: PHOTOGRAPHING ATROCITY
Body on a Hillside / Susan Meiselas, 117
Crossfire / Shahidul Alam, 123
IV: CIRCULATION AND PUBLIC CULTURE
The Iconic Image of the Mushroom Cloud and the Cold War Nuclear Optic / Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, 135
The Girl in the Photograph: The Visual Legacies of War / Nancy K. Miller, 147
Atrocity, the "As If," and Impending Death from the Khmer Rouge / Barbie Zelizer, 155
The Falling Man / Tom Junod, 167
V: ORDINARY ATROCITIES
Street Photographs in Crisis: Cernauti, Romania, c. 1943 / Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, 179
Picturing the Perpetrator / Paul Lowe, 189
War Trophy Photographs: Proof or Pornography? / Hilary Roberts, 201
Picturing an "Ordinary Atrocity": The Sharpeville Massacre / Darren Newbury, 209
VI: ATROCITY ASKANCE
Looking Askance / Geoffrey Batchen, 227
Documentary Pictorial: Luc Delahaye's Taliban, 2001 / Mark Durden, 241
The Execution Portrait / Ariella Aopulay, 249
Toward a Hyperphotography / Fred Ritchin, 261
VII: THE AFTERLIFE OF PHOTOGRAPHS
Lament of the Images / Alfredo Jaar and David Levi Strauss, 275
Photographic Interference / Lorie Novak, 283
