Stefan Boness: Flander Fields

Der preisgekrönte Fotograf Stefan Boness setzte sich in seiner langjährigen Serie „Flanders Fields“ mit den Schlachtfeldern des Ersten Weltkriegs in Flandern auseinander. Der Titel verweist auf das insbesondere in der englischsprachigen Welt bekannte Gedicht “In Flanders Fields” des kanadischen Offiziers John McCrae, sowie auf die konzeptionelle Eingrenzung auf die einstigen Schlachtfelder Belgiens. Von 2005 bis heute kehrte Boness immer wieder und bewusst zu unterschiedlichen Jahreszeiten zurück, zusammen für mehr als ein dreiviertel Jahr: „Manche Themen sind flüchtig, andere bleiben. Das ist eben ein Thema, von dem kommt man nicht los.“

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Welcome Home Allen (short film, Down Under Berlin Film Festival)

Soldiers returning home have already been pictured in several movies, such as Ted Kotcheff’s “First Blood” or Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker”. Usually, the actual return to home and thus to a completely different reality, is just a small part. Andrew Kavanagh’s short film “Welcome Home Allen” (Australia 2016, 11′) focusses on this issue, with an approach that is both surprising and convincing. Continue reading “Welcome Home Allen (short film, Down Under Berlin Film Festival)”

(Deutsch) 68. Berlinale 2018: Filme mit Kriegsbezug

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Lecture “‘An artwork, liked by men’ – 100 Years of War as Mirrored by Art” (Berlin)

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grounded/airborne (Kleine Galerie, Torgau)

Usually, wartist.org contains articles about exhibitions of other artists, movies, galleries and museums. Today, however, we have the pleasure to write on our own issues: ausgebildete Photographer Martin Bayer (educated at Lette-Verein Berlin) presents from 28 February to 10 April 2014 his exhibition grounded/airborne at Kleine Galerie (Torgauer Kunst- und Kulturverein “Johann Kentmann” e.V.). The photos from his series grounded show details of retired military planes; they will be historically commented by some aerial pictures from the First World War. Grounded addresses the medial and artistic aestheticisation of weapons, while both the clear assignment of the pictured objects to historic events and the alleged simple classification into “friend” and “enemy” become desintegrated.

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Martin Bayer: grounded

Photographer Martin Bayer (educated at Lette-Verein Berlin) addresses in his series grounded1 of decommissioned military aircraft the perception of history and war, but also the aestheticisation of weapons. Detached from their historic context, the planes appear as objects or even sculptural. Neither the country of provenance, nor their operating period are discernible: was it an “attacker” or a “defender”, regarding our own classifications? Each war produces history and its own myths – grounded puts them in the background, making room for the viewers’ own associations.

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  1. crashed, having a grounding (aircraft, pilot), fixed, earthed, but also sensible, justified