This book breaks new ground by bringing postmodern writings on vision and embodiment into dialogue with medieval texts and images: an interdisciplinary strategy that illuminates and complicates both cultures. This is an invaluable reference work for anyone interested in the history and theory of visuality, and it is essential reading for scholars of art, science or spirituality in the medieval period.
This catalogue features works from the first solo show in Britain by acclaimed Iraqi-born artist Ahmed Alsoudani. In this new series of paintings, Alsoudani continues his complex exploration of war and conflict, its physical atrocities and psychological consequences.Featuring deformed, almost bestial, figures twisting in vivid and surreal landscapes, these tableaux are often laced with a barbed or morbid humour in the manner of artists such as Francisco Goya and Max Beckmann among others.Imagery of devastation and violence abounds, with figures depicted at the moment of a dramatic transition –through fear or agony – from the human to the grotesque.While Alsoudani acknowledges the influence of many artists on his work – from Caravaggio to Carroll Dunham – he has at the same time developed his own unique pictorial language, one based on his personal experiences of growing up in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein's regime during the first Gulf War and of the more recent Iraq conflict.Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Haunch of Venison, London, 14 October - 26 November 2011.
War, Art and Surgery' is a powerful testament to the expertise of clinicians and the heroism of those who survived life-changing injuries, a century ago and today. It showcases all of Henry Tonks' pastel portraits of soldiers wounded in the First World War, accompanied by photographs, notes and diagrams from the soldiers' case files.
Portraits of Violence explores the image and idea of facial disfigurement in one of its most troubling modern formations, as a symbol and consequence of war. It opens with Nina Berman’s iconic photograph Marine Wedding, which provoked a debate about the medical, military, and psychological response to serious combat injuries. While these issues remain urgent, it is equally crucial to interrogate the representation of war and injury. The concepts of valor, heroism, patriotism, and courage assume visible form and do their cultural work when they are personified and embodied. The mutilated or disabled veteran’s body can connote the brutalizing, dehumanizing potential of modern combat. Suzannah Biernoff draws on a wide variety of sources mainly from WWI but also contemporary photography and computer games. Each chapter revolves around particular images: Marine Wedding is discussed alongside Stuart Griffiths’ portraits of British veterans; Henry Tonks’ drawings of WWI facial casualties are compared to the medical photographs in the Gillies Archives; the production of portrait masks for the severely disfigured is approached through the lens of documentary film and photography; and finally the haunting image of one of Tonks’s patients reappears in BioShock, a highly successful computer game. The book simultaneously addresses a neglected area in disability studies; puts disfigurement on the agenda for art history and visual studies; and makes a timely and provocative contribution to the literature on the First World War.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.