Richard Mosse: Infra

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Tipton, Gemma. "Richard Mosse: 'The idea of the artist going it alone is bogus' ". The Irish Times . Retrieved 22 April 2022. On the wall text before you enter the exhibitionis a cryptic quote from Mosse, that he is “concerned less with the conscience than with the consciousness”. Gallery 1 contains a selection of large prints depicting the landscapes of Eastern Congo. Bursting with those hues of crimson and pink; though re-contextualising, they render us, the viewer, fully conscious of the situation Mosse is depicting. These evocative images demand your full and prolonged fixation to their delicate balance between the real and the surreal. The hues give these landscape a blood soaked appearance, a memorial to the lives lost within those unimaginably fraught battles.

Read an excerpt from Mosse's essay in "Infra," his book of photographs on eastern Congo co-published in 2012 by Aperture Foundation and the Pulitzer Center. "Infra" was chosen as one of TIME's Best of 2012 Photobooks.

The final iteration of Infra is a six channel video installation titled The Enclave (2013), premiering in the Venice Bienniale's Irish Pavilion.

Non-refugees and journalists are rarely, if ever, allowed access to the Moria camp, says Mosse. “The authorities in Greece are ashamed; the conditions are so squalid.” So he climbed a hill nearby to take a huge panorama of the camp, using a special weapons-grade camera, which captures images by detecting thermal radiation. Emma Sumner finds darkness and light in a pair of photographic exhibitions depicting the horrors of war… Moving away from warzones and migration into the natural world, Mosse’s most recent works (Ultra and Tristes Tropiques) examine the destruction of the rainforests in South America from various perspectives. In these series, the photographer trains his eye more firmly on natural landscapes. Incoming, Curve Gallery, Barbican Centre, London; [14] [15] Le Lieu unique, Nantes, France, 2019. [16] He went to the roof for a demonstration of the camera and was able to see two men who had been invisible to the naked eye welding far away. “You could see the light of the welding flame reflected on one man’s beer belly,” Mosse recalls, “It was just such an extraordinary new image that I’d never seen before. It was so crisp.” In addition to the incredible optical zoom, the camera uses medium-wave infrared, so it’s able to cut through heat haze. “It diffuses light; it shoots nice straight lines—that’s how it can see people from very far,” he explains.Richard Mosse firmly believes in the inherent power of the image, but as a rule, he renounces shooting the classic, iconic images related to an event. He prefers to account for the circumstances, the context, to put what precedes and what follows at the centre of his reflection,’says exhibition curator Urs Stahel. A. Hussein, Edward Said. Criticism and Society, London and New York: Verso, 2002. 34. Jacques Rancière, ‘Lyotard and the Aesthetics of the Sublime: a Counter-reading of Kant’, in Aes thetics and Its Discontents, Cambridge and Malden MA: Polity, 2009, p. 88-105. The Enclave (2013) – a collaboration with cinematographer Trevor Tweeten and composer Ben Frost. Made using 16mm infrared film transferred to HD video. Shown as an installation comprising multiple double-sided screens installed in a darkened chamber. [8] [9] While sheltering in place, I’ve been thinking of thoughtful and interesting ways to stay in touch. Visual storytelling comes to mind. So for the time being, I’m revisiting favorites, including artists, recipes, images, and people. I look forward to your comments!