A Tale of Hidden Histories

The works on display shed light on the history of conflict zones, those places in the world where truth and fiction are brought into sharp focus. Broomberg & Chanarin, Omer Fast, Chia-Wei Hsu and Meiro Koizumi look at the representation of war. Can a war be recounted? Is it possible to depict a war? And what is the role of the artist in this regard? These questions act as catalysts for various stories, many of them unknown or forgotten, events that happened in World War II and the Cold War, as well as more recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Broomberg & Chanarin

Raised in South Africa and England, artists Adam Broomberg (b. 1970) and Oliver Chanarin (b. 1971) trained as photographers but now work with various media. Their work highlights historical, political and religious subjects in a provocative manner. In the process, they grapple with the role of representation, constantly reminding us of the power and many possibilities for interpreting images. The starting point for Dodo was the representation of war. A combination of archival research, archaeological excavation and unused footage from the film Catch-22 (Mike Nichols, 1970) has resulted in an impressive work about the depiction of war and the impact of the Hollywood film industry on the landscape of Mexico. The Day Nobody Died (2008) was made while both artists were embedded with the British army in Afghanistan.

Meiro Koizumi

Japanese artist Meiro Koizumi (b. 1976) uses his confrontational videos to break down deep-seated taboos and tackle difficult issues within Japanese society. His consistent body of work centres on recurring subjects such as individual and collective memory, Japanese attitudes to the past, Japanese media culture, and the depiction of ultimate Japanese heroes such as the samurai and the kamikaze. Defect in Vision (2011) and Portrait of a Young Samurai (2009) offer a disturbing picture of these combatants. The traumas and memories of American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the subject of Koizumi’s recent work Battlelands (2018).