Grave images.

PURPLE HEARTS

BY NINA BERMAN

PITTSBURGH FILMMAKERS GALLERIES

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

SEPTEMBER 7-OCTOBER 21, 2007

GRAVE AND DETERIORATING: IMAGES OF THE IRAQ WAR

BY CHRIS HONDROS

PITTSBURGH FILMMAKERS GALLERIES

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

SEPTEMBER 7-OCTOBER 21, 2007

Through their images of the Iraq War and its disabled vets in the exhibitions "Purple Hearts" and "Grave and Deteriorating: Images of the Iraq War," photographers Nina Berman and Chris Hondros challenge and unravel two tenets that have been used to prop up this war for nearly five years: freedom and heroism.

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The voices and images of Berman's subjects, disabled veterans, challenge our notions of how heroes are visually represented and whether or not there is a difference between hero and survivor. The medium-format portraits contain darkly saturated hues and an intimacy that contrasts the typical hero image of newsy magazines, usually either the constrained military-issue headshot, or the hazy family snapshot--each with their own agenda. By sublimating any direct editorial commentary, Berman does not clearly state her position on the war, although it is hard to imagine anyone being in favor of the kind of permanent damage, human deformity, and tragedy she thoughtfully portrays.

The veterans are primarily depicted alone in their personal spaces. Most, unsmiling, do not look directly into the camera. The figures centrally dominate the frame, often in front of the only doorway or in some other way blocking the deep pictorial space--there is no way out of these well-composed images, underscored by the cage metaphor of the square format.

This loneliness and tragedy pulse with the graphic nature of the work reminiscent of advertising. Sgt. Robert Acosta stands in a t-shirt, against a very blue sky, looking like the disaffected youth of a Gap ad, even with his prosthetic. Ad agencies have indeed asked for Berman's work but have also asked her for "less disturbing" images. Berman cites this challenge along with other ethical conundrums such as bootlegged images appearing on Vera Wang's wedding Web site or the choice to use an image in a PSA during the World Series.

The efficacy of the first-person narrative that accompanies each image is something to consider. In a 24/7 war that includes the Internet, soldiers' personal narratives quickly and sometimes indiscriminately slide into public discourse. And it is hard to discern: Which story is the saddest? Which the most believable? While each personal story has interesting or compelling elements, no one story will ever add up to the totality of the chaos of war. There are ironies, as well. Berman's images remind us that our bodies and our dreams can degrade quickly and without recourse, just as quickly as a camera shutter. These survivors, grotesque with scarring and plagued by psychological trauma, are products of technological advances in warfare and medicine. In previous wars, these men and women would have been dead.

Instead, they are leftover, challenging and revising their American Dream. Pfc. Alan Lewis, a double amputee, feels free to pursue his dream of becoming a teacher while Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch, a biology major who once imagined himself as a doctor, is now blind. Along with these stories, the compositions create palpable tension and conflict. In the portrait of Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch, the placement of the objects in the frame produces a tense relationship between the symmetry of the lamp head, poise of the taxidermied deer, and Jeremy's damaged skull. Jeremy's hands gesture from his sides in a stiffened, defensive posture reminiscent of autistic children, not a university graduate. We are in an intimate moment of pain, not glory.

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Like Berman's work but with different temporal and pictorial space, Hondros's photographs are a testament to closeness. The wider lens shots remind us of just how close he is to his subjects. One only has to glance at the image of the crouching girl, screaming and covered in the blood of her freshly killed parents, to realize the closeness. Hondros's work fully possesses the dynamism of a journalist who is right in the action. The emergency room medic shares a disarming expression of grief, holding the hand of a touch-and-go child while a blindfolded insurgent is inches away from Hondros during his swift detention.

The power of these war photographs is not in the sensationalism, despite the jarring situations in which we find ourselves as viewers. The power is in the consistent reference to other art forms, particularly painting and cinema. It is no wonder that Hondros cites literature as a major influence on his work.

In this regard, the ultimate shock value of Hondros's images is in the final realization that the sunlit, blindfolded man standing in front of an ochre wall is not from a Caravaggio painting, the crowded group in the Iraq detention center is not a Breugel, and the boy trudging his bicycle through a scene of mud and destruction is not a Station of the Cross. These are editorial pictures of something that recently happened, to people waiting for freedom to arrive, with ideas and hopes just like ours, perhaps their own American Dream. (1)

JEN SAFFRON is an instructor in the Film Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh.

NOTE 1. In addition to the exhibition, shown in part at Pittsburgh Filmmakers Galleries, Purple Hearts is also a book of twenty portraits of veterans and their stories, and a DVD of portraits of the vets, telling their stories.