Oorlogsschade, mei 1940 1940 - 1945

Editor: This is a set of gelatin-silver prints titled "Oorlogsschade, mei 1940," placing its creation somewhere between 1940 and 1945. They seem to depict war damage, almost like snapshots from that era. The images appear rather bleak and are arranged on a page with other such prints. How should we interpret these arrangements, this stark triptych? Curator: Consider first the arrangement itself. Each photograph, distinct in its content, finds a formal echo in the others: a wrecked plane mimics a broken bridge, a shattered truck suggests the impact that formed the crater upon which it sits. Do these photographs, when viewed together, express any greater value of destruction, either literal or artistic? Editor: That’s a very interesting observation! The echo creates a visual rhyme that emphasizes destruction from multiple perspectives: air, land, infrastructure. What could that imply? Curator: Consider the grayscale. Stripped of color, the artist removes emotional subjectivity, presenting destruction not as tragic drama, but an all-encompassing environment. The lack of shadows, the relatively uniform light, all contribute to flattening, an equality of representation among all objects present. How would you describe that choice? Editor: So, the uniformity across each image elevates this devastation to an abstract truth of the war. If the shadows highlighted dramatic specifics, as a historical account or emotional outcry, its artistic value could be undermined? Curator: Precisely. Each discrete item is reduced to form, its content rendered only as an attribute within a complex geometric arrangement of shapes, tones and the ever-present, unavoidable structure. What has struck me the most about this image is the geometry between them. It makes these disparate war images almost one, a single and all-encompassing expression. Editor: This emphasis on geometry has highlighted this devastation with fresh artistic interpretation. Now I see an experience instead of pictures, with this unique placement echoing as one encompassing perspective. Thank you!