This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
FEATURE BEYOND PHOTOGRAPHY
BETWEEN APRIL 2003 AND OCTOBER 2004, the American artist Steve Mumford claims that the hour or so it takes to make one of his
Mumford made four trips to Baghdad. Over the course of ten months sketchbook-size pictures is what sets them apart from the medium they
in the company of the US Army’s Third Infantry and First Armored to some extent ape. And perhaps our tendency to pay painting that
Divisions, the National Guard’s Third Battalion and several others he extra bit of attention is down to the fact that unlike a photograph, which
created an extensive series of watercolours and pen-and-ink sketches we all know is the product of an instant, paintings, created over a span
in the hope of capturing a side of the war that he believed news images of time, have beginnings, middles and ends. At any rate the patience I
could not. I first came across the results in New York’s Postmasters and the other gallery-goers repaid him could hardly have been down to
Gallery. The invasion was barely half a year old, and the Saturday the work. Faced with all the horror of a contentious conflict, Mumford
afternoon crowd who’d come to see the one-man show seemed more responded by producing pictures of GIs crouched in their Humvees
hushed, more reverential than usual. or distributing sweets to Iraqi children or questioning civilians, each
Like everyone else, no doubt, I was curious to find out how my one executed in a flat, bloodless way. His aim might have been to
understanding of events that I had already seen so many news images conjure up a cool, evenhanded account of history. Instead his impassive
of might alter or increase if I saw them depicted in another medium. watercolours only succeed in taking the sting out of a grim reality.
And although the documentary style of the two dozen or so pictures If three years on few people are hailing Mumford as a great war
on view clearly owed much to photojournalism, people were lingering artist, it remains a mystery why, when we have been inundated with
over them in a way they would not have had they been looking at imagery of the conflict in Iraq, his questionable efforts have received the
photographs in a newspaper or a magazine. It was as if, after months of attention they have. He may be the only artworld-sanctioned painter
relentless news coverage, here at last was a chance to take stock of the to have made it out there, but given the limitations of his approach it
war in a more considered way. seems the answer to this conundrum might lie less in his work and more
Steve Mumford, Assad Hussein, Hotel Street Guard, Baghdad, June 2004 (2004), ink and watercolour on paper, 29 x 37 cm
ARTREVIEW six.linfour.lin
p062-066 War AR Jul07.indd 64 1/6/07 01:37:50
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108 Page 109 Page 110 Page 111 Page 112 Page 113 Page 114 Page 115 Page 116 Page 117 Page 118 Page 119 Page 120 Page 121 Page 122 Page 123 Page 124 Page 125 Page 126 Page 127 Page 128 Page 129 Page 130 Page 131 Page 132 Page 133 Page 134 Page 135 Page 136 Page 137 Page 138 Page 139 Page 140 Page 141 Page 142 Page 143 Page 144 Page 145 Page 146 Page 147 Page 148