Art, conflict and pretty pics – Nat Muller on Richard Mosse’s The Enclave

Poster for The Enclave, Irish Pavillion, 55th Venice Biennale
The poster for The Enclave at the 55th Venice Biennale. On the back Lac Vert Lullaby. A text at the bottom said that it was recorded by Ben Frost at Lac Vert, Congo, in 2012 for The Enclave.

“Artists do not per se have an accountability towards their audiences. If anything their accountability is to make interesting work”

Nat Muller, independent curator and critic with her share of experience  in conflict areas and former conflict areas such as the Middle East and the Balkans, shines her light on Richard Mosse’s The Enclave, shown in the Irish pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale. She reacts to my doubts about a work that straddles the divide between art and photojournalism, and more directly to the criticism by Louise Williams, the Irish journalist with extensive experience in Congo. You can follow Nat and Louise on twitter: @nat_muller and @Loureports and Louise has a blog: travels with my microphone

Congo in Green (and Pink)

Congo-in-Pink-and-Green

Congo in Green and Pink is the way I intended the artwork for the interview With Louise Williams to come out but the animation did not work for that. So here it is, just to get the idea. The pink one is a pic of Richard Mosse’s photo and the green one is Louise’s.

Art, journalism and conflict – Louise Williams on Congo pictures

Interview with Louise Williams on Congo, conflict and the pictures of Richard Mosse

More on the pitfalls of art, journalism and conflict – A while ago I posted on Richard Mosse’s impressive work on Congo for the Irish pavilion at the Venice Biennial, called The Enclave. The work is troubling in part because it situates itself so clearly in a war zone and uses that, to the extent that the texts at the show mentioned a new way of looking at photojournalism. My Irish friend and colleague Louise Williams frequently visits Congo for her work as a journalist and a trainer. And she is fed up with the one-dimensional perpetuation of this violent image of Congo and with people using it towards their own ends. Listen to the interview (10 minutes). The artwork is supposed to be animated, fluctuating between pink and green. I posted it separately. 

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Louise Williams on Richard Mosse and Congo by Ferry Biedermann is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.