Conflict, Time, Photography

Simon Norfolk Bullet-scarred apartment building and shops in the Karte Char district of Kabul. This area saw fighting between Hikmetyar and Rabbani and then between Rabbani and the Hazaras, 2003 © Simon Norfolk

Photo exhibition: Conflict, Time, Photography
Venue details: Museum Folkwang, Museumsplatz 1, 45128 Essen, Germany.
Official Website | Event date: from 10-04-2015 to 05-07-2015 | Opening hours: Tue, Wed 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. / Thur, Fri 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. / Sat, Sun 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. / Mon closed.

Conflict, Time, Photography brings together photographic reportages and artistic works that focus on war events and their settings, their visible effects and social consequences.

[A]fter a first show at Tate Modern in London, the exhibition Conflict, Time Photography is now displayed at the Museum Folkwang in Essen. The exhibition is a cooperation between the two venues and the Staatliche Kunststammlung Dresden, where the show travels after Essen. It was curated by Simon Baker. Conflict, Time, Photography orders the more then 125 works according to how long after the event they where created. The exhibition is a journey through 150 years of conflict photography throughout the world. The focus though are the First and Second World War and the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima. Especially for the exhibition in Essen a chapter was added that shows the devastation of the region after the end of the Second World War in press photographs. The exhibition features works by Nobuyoshi Araki, René Burri, Don McCullin, Susan Meiselas, Stephen Shore and Taryn Simon.

A major topic of the exhibition is the relationship between landscape and war. The exhibition assembles some of the most impressive works by contemporary photographers concerning this topic. Pictures from Simon Norfolks work Chronotopia about war ruins in Afghanistan and Luc Delahayes pictures from Iraq show the visible consequences of war on the landscape. Chloe Dewe Matthews series „Shot at Dawn“ traces the places where soldiers were executed in the First World War for desertion on the Western Front. German photographer Ursula Schulz-Dornburg retraces the Ottoman railway line that once linked Damascus and Medina 85 years after the Second World War. The Berlin based photographer Michael Schmidt who passed away last year is present in the exhibition with his work Berlin nach 45 where he focuses on the gaps between buildings more then 35 years after the Second World War.