Bologna, MAST presents the first anthological exhibition of Irish photographer Richard Mosse

From May 7 to Sept. 19, 2021, MAST in Bologna presents the first anthological exhibition of Irish photographer Richard Mosse (Kilkenny, 1980): titled Displaced and curated by Urs Stahel, it is an exploration between documentary photography and contemporary art on the themes of migration, conflict and climate change, which aims to show that boundary where social, economic and political changes collide. On display are 77 large-format photographs including the most recent works from the series Tristes Tropiques (2020), made in the Brazilian Amazon. In addition to these images, the exhibition also features two monumental immersive video installations, The Enclave (2013) and Incoming (2017), a large 16-channel video wall, namely Grid (Moria) (2017) and the video Quick (2010).

The exhibition begins with early works shot in Bosnia, Kosovo, the Gaza Strip, and along the U.S.-Mexico border characterized by the almost total absence of human figures, documenting war zones after the events, moves on to the Infra series set in the Congo using Kodak Aerochrome, an infrared-sensitive military reconnaissance film developed to locate camouflaged subjects. The film records chlorophyll in the vegetation and “makes the invisible visible,” with the result that the lush Congolese rainforest is transfigured into a beautiful surreal landscape in shades of pink and red. Photographed are majestic landscapes, scenes with rebels, civilians and the military, the huts in which the population, always on the run, finds momentary shelter from a perennial conflict fought with machetes and rifles.

With the impressive six-part video installation The Enclave, a sister project to Infra, made for the Irish Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, Mosse reveals the contrast between the magnificent nature of the Democratic Republic of Congo forest and the violence of army soldiers and rebels. The photographic series Heat Maps and the audiovisual installation Incoming are works made between 2014 and 2018 where Mosse focused on mass migration and the tensions caused by the dichotomy between open and closed borders, compassion and rejection, culture of welcome and repatriation. These are extraordinary images of the Skaramagas refugee camps in Greece, Tel Sarhoun and Arsal in Lebanon, Nizip in Turkey, Tempelhof in Berlin, and many others.Here Mosse employs a thermal imaging camera capable of recording heat differences in the infrared range. This is a military technique that allows him to “see” human figures up to a distance of thirty kilometers, day or night. The images are apparently sharp, accurate, and rich in contrast. On closer examination, however, details cannot be discerned but only abstractions: people and objects are recognizable only as types, in their movements or outlines, but not in their individuality and uniqueness.

To produce the 2017 video wall Grid (Moria), Mosse traveled several times to the eponymous refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, known for its poor conditions. The footage was shot with infrared thermography, and the work consists of 16 screens showing the same footage at different intervals. Between 2018 and 2019, Mosse began exploring the South American rainforest where he first focused his lens on the macro and micro, shifting his research focus from human conflicts to images of nature. In Ultra, using the technique of UV fluorescence, Mosse plumbs the undergrowth, lichens, mosses, orchids, and carnivorous plants and, by altering the color spectrum, transforms these close-ups into a pyrotechnic spectacle of fluorescent, shimmering colors. Biodiversity is minutely described between proliferation and parasitism, between voracity and coexistence, to show us the wealth we are in danger of losing due to climate change and human intervention. Tristes Tropiques is Mosse’s most recent series: it documents with the precision of satellite technology the destruction of the ecosystem by man. Mosse took these exposing photographs along the “arc of fire,” in the Pantanal, the frontline of mass deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Each map shows environmental crimes perpetrated on a large scale, becoming an archive for the photographer to document them. Finally, the 2010 video Quick completes the video installations: it is a film shot by Mosse that reconstructs the genesis of his research and artistic practice through themes dear to him such as the circulation of the Ebola virus, quarantine and isolation, conflict and migration, moving between Malaysia and eastern Congo.

“Richard Mosse,” explains curator Urs Stahel, “firmly believes in the inherent power of the image, but as a rule he renounces shooting the classic iconic images linked to an event. Rather, he prefers to account for the circumstances, the context, to put what precedes and what follows at the center of his reflection. His photographs do not show the conflict, the battle, the crossing of the border, in other words the climax, but the world that follows the birth and the catastrophe. The artist wants to subvert conventional media narratives through new technologies, often military-derived, precisely to disrupt the representational criteria of war photography.”

The accompanying catalog features all the images on display as well as a critical essay by exhibition curator Urs Stahel and testimonials by Michel J. Kavanagh, Christian Viveros-Fauné and Ivo Quaranta. The volume, published by the MAST Foundation, is distributed by Corraini and is available in bookstores and online at www.mast.org and www.corraini.com.

Photo: Richard Mosse, Platon, Congo, from the series Infra

Bologna, MAST presents the first anthological exhibition of Irish photographer Richard Mosse

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