Afterimage / Images of conflict, Civic art gallery, Trento

Afterimage. Images of conflict is the project that won the CXC Call for Curators, the national competition for curators under 35 launched by the Mart last autumn. The exhibition forms a part of the Mart/The Great War 1914-2014 programme, the wide-ranging cultural programme planned by the Mart for the centenary of the First World War and hosted in Rovererto – at the Museum and in Casa Depero – and in Trento, in the Galleria Civica.

Curated by Valeria Mancinelli, Chiara Nuzzi and Stefania Rispoli, the exhibition explores the existing relationship between images and conflict in the contemporary era.
The English term “afterimage” describes that optical illusion by which an image continues to remain impressed in the mind even after the vision of the same has ceased.
The exhibition lays out the potential of the public display of the images and the persistence these have in the collective construction of reality. For images play a fundamental role in the description of contemporary scenarios, in the formation of individual or social ideas, and are used in different and apparently ever more free and autonomous ways.
From the much-discussed photographs by the father of modern photo-journalism, Robert Capa, to amateur shots which use the latest technology to reveal facts and events worldwide in real time, the exhibition aims to offer a moment of reflexion on the status and production of images of conflict. Through the work of very different artists in terms of culture and geography, Afterimage embraces a broad slice of time that stretches from the 1950s to the present day.
The exhibition will include videos, photographs and installations, and is founded on what might be defined a veritable revolution in modern warfare: since the last century, the theatre of warfare has expanded and is communicated to the masses. Propaganda, photo-journalism, radio, television and web all render the war real, “live”; the visual narration influences public opinion, helps build consensus or dissent.
The persuasive power of the images acquires a reach unknown in earlier centuries.
Today, in the era of the so-called “permanent war”, the circulation of images and the level of truthfulness of what we are shown assume a decisive role in establishing balances, inequalities, exclusions and inclusions. In a historic moment in which it is virtually possible to be constantly updated on what is happening in the world, the exhibition questions the role of images in the collective perception of a condition of peace or war.
The artistic research of Afterimage is both current and topical, and responds to the urgent need to provide critical instruments to analyze and understand an increasingly complex reality.
 
The exhibition will present works by Bisan Abu-Eisheh, Mohamed Bourouissa, Stefano Cagol, Mircea Cantor, Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová , Leone Contini, Marco Dalbosco, Camilla de Maffei, Democracia, Harun Farocki, Massimo Grimaldi, Adelita Husni-Bey, Lamia Joreige, Kennardphillipps, Thomas Kilpper, Aung Ko, Nikki Luna, Francesco Mattuzzi, Pietro Mele, Aditya Novali, Ahmet Ögüt, Fabrizio Perghem, Martha Rosler, Pietro Ruffo, Giorgio Salomon, Cindy Sherman, Abigail Sidebotham, Eyal Sivan, Hito Steyerl, ZimmerFrei.

source www.mart.trento.it