Prime Time War
James Kalm
Sean Hemmerle, Iraq Table, MSNBC, Seacaucus. Courtesy Front Gallery.
War is business, show business. Last night I watched a rented copy of Gettysberg, the epic Civil War drama. I was amazed to see that, even when the opposing armies were both on the verge of collapse, desperately low on food and ammunition, they always had their fife and drum corps-uniformed in flashy outfits, pennants flying-out at the front of their lines. These musicians weren’t there just to spur on the troops, they were there to entertain and impress the locals. In today’s information age, we have a media/military complex that seems to have overtaken and replaced the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against in the late 50s. Ultra-sophisticated military strategists have learned the hard lessons of Vietnam. The press, like a gun, can be a weapon, either aimed at you, or at your enemy. "Secret Collaborators," Sean Hemmerle’s latest selection of large format photographs, recently displayed at the Front Room, are the results of his travels to both Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as some behind the scenes glimpses at the workings of the planners, broadcasters and networks that present images of the "War on Terror" for our consumption.
Susan Sontag wrote about the power of photography and its ability to change society’s views of itself. What we’re talking about here is "propaganda," or, to put it more delicately, "shaping opinion." Hemmerle’s selection of subjects seeks to exploit the stark contrasts of the dusty and battered neighborhoods of Kabul and Baghdad, our front lines in this war, and the controlled environments in which today’s strategists and news providers strategize and provide.
As straight photographs these works are masterful. Using large film and extended exposure time (from four to ten seconds to provide extreme depth of field), Hemmerle is able to capture a wealth of detail that challenges optical vision with its fidelity. In Time Square, NYC, we see a nocturnal view of the jumbo-tron and news crawl. The distressed face of President Bush is dramatically cropped, no hair, no ears, no chin, just pink flesh, flush from edge to edge. This visage is contained between broad vertical bands of sky blue forming a painterly composition that echoes the rectangle of the photo’s edge. Below, in the street, pedestrians pass by unaware, drinking Super Sized beverages, ordering French pastry, and enjoying a night out in the "Big Apple."
Senior Staff, CENTCOM, Tampa invades the briefing room of our elder strategists. These gentlemen, in desert camo and brown boots, sitting in banks of upholstered chairs, look away from the camera, monitoring screens of advisers and subordinates. It is ironic that the flood of details evokes a type of empathy through familiarity; the extended exposure time lends some figures a ghostly blur. These could be businessmen at a corporate meeting or coaches discussing last weeks game. If there’s an implied skepticism, as the work focuses only at the messages being promoted by the American media, then Hemmerle’s art has chosen sides, and risks falling into the category of his criticized subject. Balanced neutrality, a supposed obligation of journalism but not art, would require skepticism of all sides, perhaps even of humanity’s ability to grasp truth at all. You decide.
