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http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/unveiled/
Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea UK
Jan 30th – May 9th 2009
Kader Attia, Ghost, 2007, Aluminium foil Dimensions variable
“Charles Saatchi … has put together an exhibition of contemporary art from the Middle East which contains elements that could provoke dramatically hostile reactions from Muslim fundamentalist quarters. In our hypersensitive times, after the fatwa condemning Salman Rushdie and the violent reaction to the Danish cartoons of the Prophet, Saatchi might be testing his luck in celebrating homosexual images of cavorting naked Muslim men, and cartoonish sculptures of Tehran prostitutes and transsexuals.
Yet however combustible it may turn out to be, Saatchi has good reason to put on this top-notch survey of Middle Eastern contemporary art. News of the Middle East today is dominated by images and reports of death and destruction, of terrorists and refugees, and the human misery caused by long-held political and religious antagonism. This widespread conflict overshadowing the region has tended to obscure the remarkably vibrant contemporary art scene that is alive and well in the countries of the Middle East and its diaspora.”
- Joanna Pitman , Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East at Saatchi Gallery
Unveiled, the new Saatchi Gallery’s second show lays bare the Middle East in all its raw and quirky glory, The Times, 1/27/09, retreived 1/19/11, http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article5592197.ece
A project of The National Veterans Art Museum
The distance is great.
The disconnect is great.
The impact is deep.
“The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have and will continue to leave deep scars in our hearts and minds; and for some of us these scars are emblazoned on our physical bodies and memories. Too often these occupations are swept from our conscience, into the alleys of our streets, into the corners of our city and our collective minds. If they are ever to come to end, their myriad effects must be recognized, unearthed, uncovered, demystified , and exposed!”
- Full program
During the Vietnam War, the United States used an estimated twelve million gallons of the herbicide Agent Orange to defoliate the landscape and contaminate food sources. Agent Orange contains high levels of dioxin, a carcinogenic and mutagenic chemical that has continued to alter the minds and bodies of generations of Vietnamese people. The work of Keisha Luce focuses on members of the second and third generations of victims.
Using life-molding techniques, I created sculptures during a three- month trip to Vietnam to document visually and physically the long-term consequences of chemical warfare. My activity as a documentary sculptor emerged from my own narrative as the daughter of a disabled Vietnam veteran, who died at the age of thirty-eight of an Agent Orange-related cancer. I see this work as a call to action and believe that art can effectively contribute to the discourse on war and conflict…. This work is dedicated to the millions of victims and their families living with the effects of Agent Orange.
~ Keisha Luce
A number of her sculptures were on display during the Odysseus Project Art Exhibit: The Hidden Costs of War in 2010. Learn more about the work of Keisha Luce on Sum & Parts: Documentary Sculpture and through this interview on New Hampshire Public Radio: Sculpting Agent Orange’s Legacy.
If you want to know more about the ongoing health and environmental impacts of the use of Agent Orange go to Agent Orange Record a website by the War Legacies Project in Vermont.
This Gallery Talk is part of the program around the installation …OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project by Krzysztof Wodiczko. 
Under the title Understanding War, Kevin Bowen will speak. He is a poet, Vietnam veteran, and Director of the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at UMass, Boston. Learn about the Joiner Center’s many initiatives and the impact they have already had on our understanding of war and conflict. We recommend viewing “…OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project” before the program. Tickets: Free with admission to the ICA Boston.
We are the Women of Your Village
and We Welcome You Home.
Sonbonfu Some, a Dagara woman from West Africa, told artist Sally King about a ritual performed by the women in her village. When a soldier returns from war, the women prepare a ritual and a welcome. Bare breasted, they form two lines through which the veterans will walk, in song and ceremony. It is their breasts, the infant source of nourishment, that returns them to village life, healed of war. It is the desire and connection of the women that grasps their souls back from the darkened edge, the place where it is too much to ask someone to go.
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- Breast Prayer Flags
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- Breast Prayer Flags
At this year’s International Women’s Day Sally King decided to make breast prayer flags for peace. 25 women made a print of their breasts on muslin cloth. The flags were then assembled and sewn together in the style of traditional Tibetan prayer flags. The intention behind this initiative is healing veterans of war, as an act of welcoming them back.
Read more about this initiative and making your own flag at the Breast Prayers for Peace blog.
Have a look at our online art gallery by clicking on the image above. In this curated exhibition of art on the experience of returning home from war and on war itself, by veteran, soldier and civilian artists, you’ll find artwork by more than 30 artists.
In a new, projection-based work for the ICA, Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko will focus on veterans engaged in active 
combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as citizens of those countries, looking at their shared experience of the chaos and confusion war brings. Wodiczko’s politically-charged works explore the relationship between art, democracy, trauma and healing. The Veterans Project is on view at the ICA Boston from Nov. 4, 2009 until March 28, 2010.
In a related program Nov. 11 at 6:30 PM, Krzysztof Wodiczko engages in conversation with veterans. To create his new video installation for the ICA, Wodiczko consulted with veterans of active duty in Iraq as well as with Iraqi civilians. Director of Programs David Henry will moderate a discussion between the artist and project participants about their experience working on The Veterans Project as well as the relationship between art and conflict. See the ICA website for ticket information.
In the following video, Krzysztof Wodiczko discusses a different work on the same theme: Veterans’ Flame. It was a public video projection presented in Fort Jay, Governors Island, New York as part of PLOT/09: This World and Nearer Ones, organized by Creative Time.
In Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Veterans’ Flame, the image of a candle flame moves with the recorded voices of veterans sharing accounts of war and its aftermath in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wodiczko conducted the interviews in April 2009, interested in having his subjects explore, through the act of remembering and retelling, the complex psychological space between the battlefield and their homes. By appropriating public buildings and monuments as surfaces for projections in his work, Wodiczko has focused on the ways in which architecture reflects collective memory, history, and the loss of life. Fort Jay’s silent chambers were once again filled with the voices of soldiers, and a monument to history’s conflicts became a place to contemplate contemporary accounts of war and longing.
For more information, multimedia and other links about Krzysztof Wodiczko go to the website of the PBS series Art:21.
Read a review about The Veterans Project in The Boston Globe.
This work consist of 9 lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Each of the lanterns has 4 pictures that depict the moment in which, in the midst of the Colombian armed conflict, families of disappeared persons receive a ‘present’: the remains of their beloved ones in caskets after not knowing their whereabouts for years. The installation has audio that emphasizes the failure of language – a moment of speechlessness – in these situations.
Artist James O’Neill on Sofia Botero:
Her new work examines the violence in her native Colombia. She explores the unspoken, barbaric world where people disappear only to be found in mass graves years later. Their loved ones are left without any answers, virtually ignored by the media and the society at large. In this latest effort we are presented with a grouping of lanterns suspended from the ceiling. Though they are reminiscent of Japanese luminaries, instead of being decorative, they display photographs of the few families lucky enough to have their loved ones’ remains returned to them in small child-sized coffins. In bizarre ceremonies that otherwise could be mistaken for a wedding or any other happy social occasion, we witness the living receiving their dead. These images take on a ghostly feel as they have been partially veiled with vellum on which the coffins are hand colored to look like gifts. Botero humanized the unthinkable through the documentation of this ritualized ceremony. Her work brutally asks the question – how does a mother carry on when her son vanishes without a trace?
Sofia Botero received her BFA in Fine Art in Bogotá, Colombia. Currently she is pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts degree at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She had solo and group shows in Colombia and the USA. See more work by Sofia Botero on her website.
Robin Shores is an MFA graduate of the University of Buffalo, he has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as well as Boston University. As a Peace Corps volunteer Robin Shores worked in India and Africa, and he was an English teacher in Bangladesh.
Robin Shores served in the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam in 1968.
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- Portrait of the Artist as a Returning Veteran (The Greatest Generation Not)
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- Abu Ghraib Enigma
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- Prayer Boat for the Future
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- Untitled
The piece top left is called Portrait of the Artist as a Returning Veteran (The Greatest Generation Not), and was on display during The Odysseus Project art exhibition.
The Massachusetts Cultural Council showcases work by Robin Shores here.
Washed in the Blood is a multi media installation by Jo Israelson that combines lullabies sung by mothers of warring nations, fragments of poems written by the mother of a US soldier who died in Afghanistan and portrays the collective sense of loss that washes across –not just mothers whose children are lost to war – but all of us who feel powerless to stop war.
It was a Peace March scheduled for the day before Mother’s Day. I had seen her earlier, affixing a red white and blue banner to a pair of highly polished boots. Tending this tiny shrine, she was adding a personal note – a photograph. I averted my eyes- it seemed to be such a private moment – though it was occurring in the midst of a public protest. I didn’t know what to say to a stranger who had lost their child to war.
When she was done arranging the ribbon, she sat on the ground- her arms wrapped tightly around her knees – her face buried in her lap – her body now a human grave marker.
I turned away because the grief was so palpable. It lay like a giant cloak around her shoulders.
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- Washed in the Blood
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- Washed in Blood: Mourning Mothers (detail)
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- Washed in Blood: Sea of Breasts (detail)
Jo Israelson began as a stone carver, working in limestone and marble to depict images whose roots were derived from ancient cultures. This work evolved into site-specific works that had historical underpinnings and a narrative structure. The site-specific works evolved into temporary installations that required a high degree of participation and interaction from viewers. Because these works were transitory and temporary, they called for ongoing documentation. She then turned to video to capture the essence of her work. This process led her to create experimental and documentary films.
Jo Israelson was featured in an article in the Washington Post that highlights living with installation art.
