IMAGE WAR: Contesting Images of Political Conflict

Press Release: April 2006
WHITNEY'S INDEPENDENT STUDY PROGRAM PRESENTS
download press release [PDF] :
http://www.firstpulseprojects.com/isp-exhibitionrelease.pdf

IMAGE WAR:
CONTESTING IMAGES OF POLITICAL CONFLICT, MAY 19-JUNE 25, 2006
At the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street
Opening Reception: Friday, May 19, 2006, 6-8 pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Sunday 12-6 pm

Featuring work by fourteen contemporary international artists, Image War:
Contesting Images of
Political Conflict highlights recent artistic practices that explore media
representations of war and
conflict. Artists included are Willie Doherty, Claire Fontaine, Coco Fusco,
Rainer Ganahl, Joy Garnett,
Johan Grimonprez, Jon Haddock, Amar Kanwar, Dinh Q. Le, An-My Le, Radic=
al
Software Group (RSG),
and Tamiko Thiel & Zara Houshmand. The exhibition is on view from May 19
through June 25 at The
Art Gallery of the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street.

Organized by the 2005/06 Helena Rubenstein Curatorial Fellows of the Whitney
Museum of
American Art Independent Study Program, this exhibition features work in a
variety of media
including painting, photography, digital compositions, video, and
interactive virtual reality. The
works in the show were all made since the first Gulf War, but focus on
conflicts ranging from the
Vietnam War through the current war in Iraq. The artists in the exhibition
examine how media
coverage of political violence often determines our understanding of
conflicts.

In Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1995/1997) the artist Johan Grimonprez mines archives
of televised
airplane hijackings, remixing the material into a compelling, disco-driven
video narrative that
rethinks depictions of air terror.

In Rainer Ganahl's Afghan Dialogs series (2001-03), two of which are
included in Image War, the
artist took taglines from the bottom of cable news channels during the U.S.
military campaign in
Afghanistan. He then embroidered them into large fabric banners, which were
sent to Afghanistan,
where residents were given the opportunity to stitch their own responses to
these taglines.

Joy Garnett's painting Kill Box (2001) appropriates a night-vision image of
a tank from the First
Gulf War as made iconic by television coverage. This painterly
interpretation highlights a
dissonance between the digital image and the human touch.

In conjunction with the exhibition three special events are planned.

On Tuesday, May 23, 7- 9 pm
in the Martin E. Segal Theatre of The Graduate Center, artists Joy Garnett
and Alexander Galloway
will discuss modes of appropriation in their artwork.

On Tuesday, May 30, 7- 9 pm in the Martin
E. Segal Theatre of The Graduate Center, Coco Fusco will host the New York
premiere of her new
video Operation Atropos.

And on Saturday, June 8 at 5:30 pm neuroTransmitter will lead a
performance which will begin at The Art Gallery.

Contact:
Jan Rothschild, Stephen Soba, Meghan Bullock
(212) 570-3633 or [email protected]
www.whitney.org/press

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