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TORTURE by Clinton Fein |
Artist Statement
In April 2004, a story broke that would change the perception of America by both Americans and the rest of the world. The Abu Ghraib images jolted us, momentarily, into a realization that morality is a relative construct, and that in a world defined by such simplistic contrivances as good and evil, it is what humans are capable of doing to one another that affirms, despite our intellect, that at our core we are animals, primal and base. Whether you're running naked screaming with napalm covering your body, being forced to stand with your arms outstretched, climb atop a human pyramid of naked prisoners, forced to crawl through urine and feces, or be subject to a growling dog snarling inches from your face, all represent violence, albeit in varying degrees. The images from Abu Ghraib, in addition to being small, diffuse and low-resolution, were also deliberately obscured by both the Pentagon and media to conceal the blatant nudity, as if somehow the depiction of genitalia was somehow more offensive and indecent than the act of torture. A modern world with increasingly enabling communications, instant gratification, superficial celebrity worship, collective attention deficit disorder, information glut and an unwillingness to introspect and confront who we are in those grainy photos all combined to defuse the impact of the original images from Abu Ghraib. For these reasons, my focus was on clarity, scale, resolution and the choreographed sexualization of torture, which includes images of prisoners, stripped naked, wearing hoods or sandbags as they're forced to stand in excruciatingly uncomfortable positions, simulate sexually degrading acts, are plastered with feces and are subject to egregious humiliation. To provide an opportunity to examine, perhaps for the first time, what those images really depicted. Our society, and particularly a pseudo, hyper-masculine military culture, cannot conceive anything worse than a heterosexual man being forced to engage in gay sex against his will any more than Muslims can, but if the pyramid was of female detainees in the identical position, in how many college lockers might it be pinned up, and what kind of fodder might it offer for teens yet exposed to pornography? These are things no one wants to talk about, even in earnest examinations of the Abu Ghraib scandal. And yet for all its pious revulsion, the United States military and media dub Abu Ghraib as scandalous, abusive, disgraceful, an abomination, a violation, degrading, debase -- anything under the sun but the word that dare not speak its name -- torture. America's approach to torture under the current Bush administration is beyond shameful. The images in this exhibition serve as nothing more than a stark reminder of who we are. Not only as a nation, but as species. For how long will we continue to allow this to define us? Clinton Fein, August 2007 |