Black_White_Photography_-_Winter_2014

11

B+W

From Medina to Jordan Border, Saudi Arabia: From Train Stations of the Hejaz Railway in Saudi Arabia 2003 by Ursula Schultz-Dornburg.

Purchased by Tate with funds provided by the Photography Acquisitions Committee 2012.



Barnard’s images of the American Civil

War, the first conflicts to be recorded by

the camera. These are shown alongside a

range of artists at different stages of their

careers who have made work in Africa,

Europe, Japan and the Middle East. The

following is a selection of five works from

different key moments in the exhibition.

In the weeks and months following

the end of World War I there was an

abundance of images documenting the

ruined towns and cities in the north east

of France, often printed as postcards or

published in guide books. Pierre Antony-

Thouret photographed what remained of the

historic city of Reims. Located close to the

front line, the city was badly damaged

during the course of the war and the

cathedral, Notre-Dame de Reims, lay in

ruins. Antony-Thouret published a lavish

portfolio Reims After the War (1927)

consisting of 127 heliogravure plates made

as a souvenir of the ruined city, with

proceeds of the sale of the album going

towards the restoration of the cathedral.

Images in the portfolio alternate between

landscapes of the ruined city and close-up

images of debris, including an uncanny

image of two priests standing on a pile of

rubble inside what remains of the cathedral.

Seven months after the fall of the Gaddafi

regime, one of the most recent conflicts

‘...there are interesting parallels

to the way photographers have

made work about past confl icts,

focusing on the importance of the

time taken to refl ect and form

diff erent perspectives.’

© Ursula Schultz-Domburg

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