#rose issa

[saddayfordemocracy]

Batoul Shimi, “Arab World Under Pressure”, 2012,

Aluminum Pressure Cooker

Courtesy of the artist and Rose Issa Projects

[imagesgohere]

Wetiko: Cowboys and Indigenes

This article was originally published in Arts + Culture Texas for their April 2014 issue and can be found here.

Nermine Hammam, From the Wetiko series (2013-2014). Audience chez un Khalifat by Eugene Fromentin (1859). Mixed Media 27.56 x 39.37 inches Courtesy of the artist and Rose Issa Projects, London.

In 2012, the BBC covered the Houla Massacre in Syria but mistakenly used a photograph taken in Iraq nearly a decade earlier. Perhaps more alarming is the sheer interchangeability of victim imagery. Either by political will or sheer negligence, images with stripped or repurposed contexts alter the stories that become recorded as history—influencing popular perception and political action.

Hammam digitally inserts figures clipped from news coverage, and takes care to make the figures appear painted on the surface of the image, adopting the palette of the original painter. It would be easy for a casual glance to miss the altered imagery; the collaged photos are executed in a manner that is very painterly. Marines in flak jackets raid an 1860s Caliph’s house; young boys loot computer supplies during an Old West shoot-out.

By juxtaposing images from the two eras, Hammam draws a parallel between the artist-correspondents of our colonial past and the photo-journalists of today. Regardless of the image-maker’s intent, the underlying message can always be shaped by whoever controls the context. It was by no accident that curator Madeline Yale Preston presented this exhibition along with NEWSROOM, an exhibition of photojournalists in the Arab World.

A symptom of journalistic negligence, or perhaps the work of spin doctors with an agenda, this visual malapropism and its colonial overtones is drawn into sharp focus by Hammam. While the level of absurdity in Wetiko yields a lighter tone, the implication remains grave for not only journalism, but for the passivity we adopt as consumers of news and imagery.

[alquozkinjo-blog]

Rose Issa

Rose Issa is a curator, writer and producer who has championed visual art and film from the Arab world and Iran for nearly 30 years. She has lived in Iran, Lebanon, France and, for the last 25 years, London, where from her private project space in Great Portland Street she showcases upcoming and established artists, and produces exhibitions and publications with public and private institutions worldwide.

[svaartpractice]

Rose Issa writes about Art Practice faculty member Susan Hefuna's contribution to "The Edgeware Road Project" in Nafas art magazine.