Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Broomberg & Chanarin: The War Primer

When Amsterdam based photographic institution Foam came up with the idea of launching a forum to stimulate dialogue around the theme 'What's Next?' in the world of photography it's no surprise that shape-shifting duo Broomberg & Chanarin were among the first on the list of people they would consult.

It's not only by virtue of their position as lecturers and educators but primarily by being prolific producers of work, exhibitions, films, books and collaborations with other artists, that Broomberg & Chanarin have been able to adopt a position in the photography world that floats them comfortably above the genres and constraints of image making that most of us seem happy to bind ourselves to.

Always somehow evading classification and definition, perhaps by virtue of being a kind of artistic odd-couple, they have developed their own language of terse and topical, yet playful photographic statements.

Methodically mining our understanding of how we as individuals view and read images and also how our understanding of the photographic image has been constructed for us is often the starting point of their photographic explorations.

This video of their 'What's Next?' presentation is a perfect example.