March 25, 2007
Blog Entry: Bringing the War Home/House Beautiful
[Gladiators - Martha Rosler. Photomontage. 2004.]
In Gladiators...the bourgeois home has not only turned out to be invaded, its interior has become inseparable from the mayhem outside its walls. ... The quiet of the affluent residence has been shattered by a police officer, who is apparently arresting a member of the household while heavily armed U.S. soldiers conduct a search and destroy mission through the dwelling.
Viewers of Gladiators may be confused by the chaotic panorama glimpsed through the abode’s huge bay windows. In part it is obviously a distressing Iraqi street scene where smoke from a detonated car bomb wafts by palm trees, but who are the odd looking men rushing the house as they brandish clubs?
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The photograph depicting them is not a readily identifiable image, even though it’s an Associated Press photo that was widely circulated on the internet. The image documents U.S. Marines of the 1st Division in Iraq, dressed as gladiators and - like a scene from Charlton Heston’s, Ben Hur - holding chariot races with filched Iraqi horses. The bizarre incident occurred at a Marine military base outside of the doomed city of Fallujah on November 6th, 2004, the very eve of the Marine attack that would destroy the "insurgent stronghold" of 300,000 civilians.
AFP account http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1107-02.htm
more http://www.art-for-a-change.com/blog/2007/02/bringing-war-home-house-beautiful.html
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[photos * & ** from Nothing Can Stop Us Now (2004)/ all links from above]
Posted by Stubbornson at March 25, 2007 08:49 PM