I’ve never been a great fan of either Donovan Wylie or Paul Seawright, but the video of their conversation at the opening of Seawright’s show in Paris last November with the working title of ‘Making News’ but shown as ‘Things Left Unsaid‘ at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, held my attention, although I soon got rather fed up with looking at the two photographers and took to looking instead at the eight images and installation view which you can find on Paul Seawright’s web site.
On the web site it explains the project:
‘Exploring the theatre of war through the internal landscape of the US television news studio. Developing Virilio’s writing on electronic warfare and weapons of mass communication, Seawright focuses on the illusory nature of these spaces, where information is selectively transformed into news. Characteristically Seawright continues his exploration of contested spaces and illuminates an invisible aspect of contemporary conflict.’
(You can read an interview with Paul Virilio on Vice, and more on Wikipedia.)
The book contains – according to the talk – 26 images, and you can see a slide show of 7 images on APB where the 56 page book is on sale.
Seawright at one point says he doesn’t like taking photographs, the ‘moment’ for him is when he sees the exhibition for the first time on the gallery wall, and he comments that the book is secondary, lacking the drama of the exhibition.
WhileI feel with him and Wylie that the camera is a purely functional thing I find myself more in sympathy with Wylie’s comments about taking pictures and the experience of doing this. It may be and often is exhausting, but fore me it is also at times exhilarating. But perhaps it does account for an absence of feeling that I often feel in looking at Seawright’s pictures; something I don’t see even with the New Topographics who he relates his work to.
Near the end of the the discussion Seawright comments “We make work because we believe in the work and the idea behind the work” which seems very much, despite the differences in our ideas and approaches to photography, something with which I can wholeheartedly agree.
Looking at the various other projects on Seawright’s web site, there are others that I find rather more interesting that ‘Things Left Unsaid‘, a title which he suggests on the video could apply to all of his work. One of the more interesting is ‘Invisible Cities‘ and the site has links to two reviews, one of which is in Socialist Worker. Although not entirely complimentary, and commenting that it fails to show the African dynamism, implying that “the legacy of colonialism in Africa is too dominant and exhausting to ever be changed”, this concludes:
“Neverthless, Invisible Cities is a terrific selection of photographic art. It skillfully uses seemingly prosaic scenes of urban life to present an startlingly new image of Africa – one that is not dominated by violence and famine, but rather by human beings engaged in a day-to-day existence that is not a million miles away from our own.”
Donovan Wylie’s work can be seen on his Magnum page.
Thanks to Peggy Sue Amison, Artistic Direct for East Wing in Dubai for a Facebook post sharing the link to the video.
