In Sophie Ristelhueber's large-scale artworks and installations, the photographed landscape appears in fragments: damaged, rent, pockmarked. These traces of history and conflict, which the artist calls `details of the world', are like scars on a body, and they convey a similar tale of wounds scarcely healed. Ristelhueber has photographed these metaphorical landscapes in war-torn places like Beirut, Kuwait, Bosnia and Iraq since 1982, recording the violence inflicted on the surface of the earth by the machinery of war. ...
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In Sophie Ristelhueber's large-scale artworks and installations, the photographed landscape appears in fragments: damaged, rent, pockmarked. These traces of history and conflict, which the artist calls `details of the world', are like scars on a body, and they convey a similar tale of wounds scarcely healed. Ristelhueber has photographed these metaphorical landscapes in war-torn places like Beirut, Kuwait, Bosnia and Iraq since 1982, recording the violence inflicted on the surface of the earth by the machinery of war. Rather than focusing on the geopolitical meaning of a particular conflict, Ristelhueber is engaged with the ambiguities of what she calls the `terrain of the real and of collective emotions'. In her magisterial triptych Iraq, rows of burnt, decapitated palm trees stand in a blasted-out landscape; they are like, the artist says, `the remains of a defeated army.' Although the image clearly resonates with the current war in Iraq and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, Ristelhueber's approach implies that the current situation is part of an unceasing historical cycle of destruction and construction. In her photographs, the surface of the land becomes a kind of palimpsest on which the disfiguring marks of decades of conflict continue to be recorded.
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Add this copy of Sophie Ristelhueber: Operations to cart. $56.00, new condition, Sold by Vincent Borrelli, Bookseller rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Albuquerque, NM, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Thames & Hudson.
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Seller's Description:
New in New jacket. First (English) edition, first printing. Hardcover. Yellow paper-covered boards with title debossed on cover and printed in gray on spine; with photographically illustrated dust jacket. Photographs, installations and artist's books by Sophie Ristelhueber. Essays by Bruno Latour, David Mellor and Thomas Schlesser. Includes an illustrated list of exhibitions and a bibliography. 448 pp., with over 560 illustrations. 10-3/8 x 8 inches. New in publisher's shrink wrap. From the publisher: "In Sophie Ristelhueber's artworks and installations, the photographed landscape appears in fragments: damaged, rent, pockmarked. These traces of history and conflict, which the artist calls 'details of the world, ' are like scars on a body, and they convey a similar tale of wounds scarcely healed. Ristelhueber has been photographing these metaphorical scars in war-torn places like Beirut, Kuwait, Bosnia and Iraq since 1982, recording the violence inflicted on the surface of the earth by the machinery of war. Rather than focusing on the geopolitical meaning of a particular conflict, she is engaged with the ambiguities of what she calls the 'terrain of the real and of collective emotions. ' Ristelhueber's approach implies that the current world situation is part of an unceasing historical cycle of destruction and construction--in her photographs, the surface of the land becomes a kind of palimpsest on which the disfiguring marks of decades of conflict continue to be recorded. Sophie Ristelhueber is one of France's most noteworthy contemporary artists. Her book W(est) B(ank) was published by Thames & Hudson in 2005. Sophie Ristelhueber was awarded the Deutsche Borse Photography prize in 2010."
