Hiroshima After Iraq: Three Studies in Art and War

by Rosalyn Deutsche

Many on the left lament an apathy or amnesia toward recent acts of war. Particularly during the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, opposition to war seemed to lack the heat and potency of the 1960s and 1970s, giving the impression that passionate dissent was all but dead.

Through an analysis of three politically engaged works of art, Rosalyn Deutsche argues against this melancholic attitude, confirming the power of contemporary art to criticize subjectivity as well as war. Deutsche selects three videos centered on the deployment of the atomic bomb: Krzysztof Wodiczko's "Hiroshima Projection" (1999), made after the first Gulf War; Silvia Kolbowski's "After Hiroshima mon amour" (2005-2008); and Leslie Thornton's "Let Me Count the Ways" (2004-2008), which followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Each of these works confronts the ethical task of addressing historical disaster, and each explores the intersection of past and present wars. These artworks profoundly contribute to the discourse of war resistance, illuminating the complex dynamics of viewing and interpretation. Deutsche employs feminist and psychoanalytic approaches in her study, questioning both the role of totalizing images in the production of warlike subjects and the fantasies that perpetuate, especially among the left, traditional notions of political dissent. She ultimately reveals the passive collusion between leftist critique and dominant discourse in which personal dimensions of war are denied.

Genres: Art, Philosophy

104 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010

Reviews

[Divya]

A very nice reading of three major works. Overall feels contemporary and immediate.

[sabryn]

The analysis Deutsche lobbies on the effect of art in the midst of war and destruction are not only pertinent to the international affairs to which we are privy but seem to proliferate in the interpersonal connections we experience, here, today, 13 years later. I found that many of her passages utilizing theories of psychoanalysis by Freud, Arendt, Lacan, and Levinas investigated unconscious practices echoed in the sociopolitical spheres online and around us. Particularly touching was her analysis of Leslie Thornton's 'Let Me Count the Ways' in which the whole of her argument around subjectivity and destruction is fastidiously engaged. Thornton's artwork provides the central pillar for which Deutsche illuminates the nuance and fragility of social order that is lost in the black-and-white approaches of war, patriotism, and groupthink. The chapter ends with a delve into the concept of 'avisuality' - a visuality that produces nothing, in which the unseen appears. Deutsche's perspectives on social non-indifference and the ability of art to widen the public sphere of democratic thinking, by a response that makes its viewers transcend above ideas of division, are more applicable than ever in the time of Qanon, the growth of leftist politics, and the scramble to decide amongst ourselves what an ethical society is.