This Is War

What the hell? First entry isn't even about a film! No, Geth and I went to the Barbican last Thursday to see This is war! A photographic exhibition of war...memories? I hestitate to say "art" as it was all real; and moving, and educative. Upstairs you are close to the action with what would now be called photo-journalism from the Spanish civil war, the Japanese invasion of China and the Allied invasion in WWII. Downstairs is Iraq.

I was reminded of a tv program made by Dan Cruickshank of the BBC about the treasures in the museums around Bagdad. How naive to think the Americans had a plan to preserve order and heritage like that. The disaster was re-told through mobile phones, video and story telling. All very innovative, matching the innovation upstairs from Robert Capa and his partner Gerda Taro, her photos, on square format paper and his from a Leica, rectangular were so obvious, matter of fact and so clear that I found it hard to relate to them as real events, perhaps because, they didn't look like they were in the past at all, it just looked normal. How odd, the idea of normal people going to war!

The highlight upstairs is the famous photograph of the Fallen Soldier, captured at the point of death, life draining. This was in Spain, and Capa delivered another of these in Germany. I am such a layman, I'd not heard of or seen any of these, I don't know the history of the Spanish civil war. Context and back-story leads to appreciation I think.

Posted with LifeCast