Sunday, January 8, 2017

Visual Conventions of the Popular Present

Again and Again similar images are repeated, with only the actors and settings changing.

                         ... Grieving mothers,
                         ... charred human remains,
                         ... sunsets,
                         ... women giving birth,
                         ... children playing with toy guns,
                         ... cock fights,
                         ... bull fights,
                         ... Havana street scenes,
                         ... reflections in puddles,
                         ... reflections in windows,
                         ... football posts in unlikely locations,
                         ... swaddled babies,
                         ... portraits taken through mosquito nets,
                         ... needles in junkies' arms,
                         ... derelict toilets,
                         ... Palestinian boys throwing stones,
                         ... contorted Chinese gymnasts,
                         ... Karl Lagerfeld,
                         ... models preparing for fashion shows backstage,
                         ... painted faces,
                         ... bodies covered in mud,
                         ... monks smoking cigarettes,
                         ... pigeons silhouetted against the sky,
                         ... Indian Sardus,
                         ... children leaping into rivers,
                         ... pigs being slaughtered


 Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Unconcerned But Not Indifferent, 2008