There's unlikely to be a better depiction of war photography in London right now. And yet, the fact this doesn't even depict a real live war taking place is very much part of the same reason. The photographer; often comparable to a sniper in their successive premeditated shots is appropriately undertaken in Gronsky's 'triptychs' which provide individual action scenes making up a whole scene. Framed and hung on a wall, smoke and silhouetted forests join up and continue into the next frame, surveying all around him. The performative aspect of photography is played out specifically here, where a re-enactment of the 'Siege of Leningrad' is taking place, albeit a family friendly version. Perspective is linear and formal but generally appears shallow in this snowy mist ridden landscape, as soldiers swarm patterns in their clustering amid whiteness. Our vision is situated among the crowds and the soldiers, who don’t even bother to keep in their roles. Gallery viewers’ chuckle at a soldier in the corner of the image caught texting behind enemy lines. As realities overlap and disintegrate, oppositional imagery generate unenforced comparisons; slow moving tanks and children on red sleighs - those potential surplus suppliers of the next war machine perhaps?
Such a detached immersion could be comparable to the panoramic all invasive virtual street view, as if taken from a film set pulley. Except we are not outsiders looking in, no more than the crowds gathering around who provide the context to this spectacle of exploits which have always had filmic rings to them; WW2, The Seven Years War, January Uprising, The Crimean Crisis. But this is slightly more than merely being an embodiment of the vacuous spectacle, self aware absurdity and meaningless guidance. And it isn't an intentional subversion. This is actually more 'real' in feeling, because it depicts the moments in between the 'soldier's' performances, chatting to passers-by, on the phone, slacking off or casually carrying supplies, like any task-based job; broken up by tea breaks and the odd bloke on fire. A 'Where's Wally' game takes place within this neo-medieval fresco depicting a coming of Judgement day, except everyone is a Wally to point at.
Though less charged and critically complex than Deller's self-immersing 'Battle of Orgreave' in which there is a kind of coming to terms with the past through re-enactment, it nevertheless follows along the thread of historical zombification. That is to say, a lifeless re-creation. 'History Needs You' for its own regeneration, to borrow a quote from Rebecca Schneider's 'times of theatrical re-enactment'. Whilst in Monty Python's 'The Batley Townswomens' Guild Presents the Battle of Pearl Harbour' the ridiculous nature of re-enactment and cultural borrowing in the absence of context was already well highlighted through humour. Perhaps then if we are to re-enact the past at all, it should be to engage with our present future, or to borrow again, this time from the exhibition title; a consideration of what social 'reconstruction' is taking place when we do re-enact.
The integration of war - not just as an entertainment but also a genre - maybe accepts an inability to overcome its reality, highlighting instead the theatrical manner in which it is so often presented, of which art history shares much aesthetic responsibility. But even within this a shred of optimism lies in Gronsky's own displays, in which it celebrates the comedy of incompetence, that wonderful human trait. In some scenes it's difficult to know if anyone is even following orders at all and the detection of children making snow angels in the background further adds such ludicrous displays of potency. A cultural environment caught between obligatory enjoyment and naive participation. This is but only one piece of work within a curated show about Russian photography and a country 'grappling with its past and its future' (as the exhibition notes state), but what Country isn't always going through this dichotomy of creative destruction? These photographs in all their purposeful limitations of grand narrative show us that we tend to drag both with us, selectively cropping and retrieving pieces of information along the way. In this case the present seems caught between lackadaisical patriotism and a leisure class that undermines its own functions.
While the ghostly figures situated among white snow is almost too profound a metaphor for the silent traces of history, death and memory. So I will just leave it at that.
Such a detached immersion could be comparable to the panoramic all invasive virtual street view, as if taken from a film set pulley. Except we are not outsiders looking in, no more than the crowds gathering around who provide the context to this spectacle of exploits which have always had filmic rings to them; WW2, The Seven Years War, January Uprising, The Crimean Crisis. But this is slightly more than merely being an embodiment of the vacuous spectacle, self aware absurdity and meaningless guidance. And it isn't an intentional subversion. This is actually more 'real' in feeling, because it depicts the moments in between the 'soldier's' performances, chatting to passers-by, on the phone, slacking off or casually carrying supplies, like any task-based job; broken up by tea breaks and the odd bloke on fire. A 'Where's Wally' game takes place within this neo-medieval fresco depicting a coming of Judgement day, except everyone is a Wally to point at.
Though less charged and critically complex than Deller's self-immersing 'Battle of Orgreave' in which there is a kind of coming to terms with the past through re-enactment, it nevertheless follows along the thread of historical zombification. That is to say, a lifeless re-creation. 'History Needs You' for its own regeneration, to borrow a quote from Rebecca Schneider's 'times of theatrical re-enactment'. Whilst in Monty Python's 'The Batley Townswomens' Guild Presents the Battle of Pearl Harbour' the ridiculous nature of re-enactment and cultural borrowing in the absence of context was already well highlighted through humour. Perhaps then if we are to re-enact the past at all, it should be to engage with our present future, or to borrow again, this time from the exhibition title; a consideration of what social 'reconstruction' is taking place when we do re-enact.
The integration of war - not just as an entertainment but also a genre - maybe accepts an inability to overcome its reality, highlighting instead the theatrical manner in which it is so often presented, of which art history shares much aesthetic responsibility. But even within this a shred of optimism lies in Gronsky's own displays, in which it celebrates the comedy of incompetence, that wonderful human trait. In some scenes it's difficult to know if anyone is even following orders at all and the detection of children making snow angels in the background further adds such ludicrous displays of potency. A cultural environment caught between obligatory enjoyment and naive participation. This is but only one piece of work within a curated show about Russian photography and a country 'grappling with its past and its future' (as the exhibition notes state), but what Country isn't always going through this dichotomy of creative destruction? These photographs in all their purposeful limitations of grand narrative show us that we tend to drag both with us, selectively cropping and retrieving pieces of information along the way. In this case the present seems caught between lackadaisical patriotism and a leisure class that undermines its own functions.
While the ghostly figures situated among white snow is almost too profound a metaphor for the silent traces of history, death and memory. So I will just leave it at that.
