Timely Details?

The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston is showing a fascinating and disturbing new photography exhibit--one whose poignancy and controversy is infinitely enhanced by the recent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The exhibit constitutes a representative selection of the works of Paris-based photographer Sophie Ristelhueber. The photographs, in turn, exhibit striking images of the destruction and scarring caused by various wars of recent history, including the Gulf War, the conflict in Kosovo, and the civil war in Lebanon.

Of course, these images of destruction and horror are particular striking in light of the events of September 11th. In fact, the MFA notes as much in a pop-up message on their webpage. The message in the box reads, "Art can play a significant role in our lives even in the most difficult times....Since the tragic events of September 11th, these works of art have assumed a new relevance, and some of our visitors may find them particularly disturbing. We hope that this exhibition will provide a forum for reflection and discussion."

Unfortunately, it seems that this message from the MFA is on a certain level correct for the wrong reasons. What the MFA seems to be saying is that people may find Ristelhueber's work particularly disturbing because the images of carnage and war that she chronicles will conjure up painful memories and associations with the tragedies of September 11th. But what is really disturbing about Ristelhueber's work is not the images themselves, but rather their theoretical underpinnings.

Ristelhueber has not always been an artist, having first taken a master's degree in literature, and not producing any visual art until 1980, when she was already past the age of 30. Her shift towards the visual is significant, for it underlines an important aspect of her artistic philosophy. She abandoned literature in favor of visual art because she believed that "there is no greater reason to make art than to explore the world as it is", and that, by extension, a literary description could not possibly express the nature of a physical image as well as a visual representation of the image itself. Her point, then, is to let the real imagery of destruction speak for itself, to avoid prescription and interpretaion. She doesn't offer answers or criticisms, but the art alone, naked, unadorned.

But this valuation of the visual over the literary is more than just an aesthetic philosophy, but rather also reflects Ristelhueber's philosophy of history. Ristelheuber seems to have a radically descriptive and almost impartial outlook on the horror that characterizes human conflict. That is not to say that Ristelhueber in any condones or looks favorably upon the disturbing images in her photographs--it is perhaps quite the contrary--but that she looks upon human conflict as inevitablethat history rolls forward in all too similar cycles, characterized by paroxysms of violence at every turn.

And this assertion is by no means only based on Ristelhueber's art; Rather, she makes her view of the world patently clear by coupling a passage from Thucydides with a series of photographs from the war in Kosovo. The passage Ristelhueber quotes represents Thucydides' idea that conflict is inevitable and that people will by nature always abuse other people for their own gain to whatever extent they can. Her use of this passage is telling evidence of the general theme in Ristelhueber's work of a resigned, almost defeatist approach to the horrible things we humans do to each other.

In the photographs themselves, this is reflected in a consummate lack of all human presence in all but a few of the images. Ristelhueber instead chooses to focus on the vestiges of conflict--the remnants of troop movements, of battles, of actions taken and not being taken. She is particular fond, for example, of images of rusty cans and shells in the middle of a huge desert . (One is reminded often, in perusing the exhibit, of P.B. Shelley's timeless words from Ozymandias: "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch far away.") Human suffering and become morally neutral in these photographs, as Ristelheuber deflates the concepts of good and evil, moving beyond them towards what, in her eyes, is the inevitable.

Ristelhueber's Thucydidean concept of the inevitability of human conflict and violence seems to be a particularly insensitive message at a time like this. It is almost offensive to assert--whether explicitly or implicitly--that attacks that kill innocent civilians by the thousands are simply part of an immutable historical continuum. The exhibit is not upsetting for what it shows, but for the inappropriate message it offers. Even if Ristelhueber is able to chronicle one disaster after another with artistic detachment, she (and the MFA) should take into account the need at this time for emotional response and moral valuation.