Suzanne Opton – Soldier Project

The Iraq War officially ended on December 15, 2011.  I don’t know about you, but apart from some predictable political posturing, to me it felt like the end of this 10 year war was barely acknowledged and quickly forgotten.  Perhaps it is because we all want to forget.

In 2006 photographer Suzanne Opton took a series of photographs of soldiers at Fort Drum Army base in New York.  These soldiers had all completed tours of duty in Iraq and/or Afghanistan and were awaiting redeployment.  For the photographs she asked each soldier to lay his/her head on the table and look at the camera.  No other directions were given.  It’s unusual to see a soldier portrayed in such a passive, vulnerable position.  The resulting images seem both intimate and disquieting.  These are soldiers with their guard down.  Looking into their eyes, one can only wonder about the toll the war has taken on these young men and women.  I find the images to be hauntingly beautiful and a reminder that while we as a nation may choose to quickly forget and move on, the memories of war will linger with those who fought for much, much longer.

You can see more of Suzanne Opton’s soldier photographs here.

Compassion

While reading an article this weekend in the latest issue of The Sun magazine, I ran across the poem “Compassion” by Miller Williams.  It talks about how we may never really know what is going on inside a person’s life.  I thought it worth sharing.

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it.  What seems conceit,
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.

The Narrative of Victor Karloch

One of my very favorite things is puppetry—especially innovative puppetry that pushes the envelope regarding what one normally thinks of as puppetry.  I recently ran across this trailer of a puppet production called “The Narrative of Victor Karloch.”  I know next to nothing about this except that it looks freaking amazing!  I’d love to see this in person.

 

Passage à l’acte

Passage à l’acte is a short experimental film from Austrian filmmaker Martin Arnold.  The piece is a reworking of several seconds of footage from the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird.  Watching the entire 11+ minute film feels like a feat of endurance.  For myself, I find the experience initially intriguing, then moving to irritation, and finally becoming mesmerizing.  Unfortunately, the full video is no longer available on YouTube, but you can watch a few minutes of it below.  This will certainly give you a taste.

Jonathan Schipper – Slow Room

“Slow Room” is an art piece by Jonathan Schipper in which a fully furnished room is slowly pulled through a hole in the wall.  What the time lapse video doesn’t convey is that this process happened over the period of a month.  In real time the destruction is occurring so slowly, you don’t even realize it it is happening before your very eyes.

While in Miami a couple of weeks ago during Art Basel Miami Beach, I attended the collective project space Seven and got to see a piece by this artist.  By the time I viewed the piece, the room was nearly demolished.

A few years ago I saw another work by Schipper at the NEXT art fair in Chicago.  It was entitled “Slow Inevitable Death of American Muscle” and featured a Pontiac Firebird and Trans Am crashing into each other in slow motion over the period of six days.  Again, the demolition was happening at such a slow rate, one didn’t realize it was happening.  I find this artist’s work very intriguing.