Simon Griffee
Design consulting, art direction, photography.

Trinity

Published 2008 October 6

Carl de Keyzer’s Trinity (Click on ‘Skip movie and enter Carl de Keyzer portfolio’, and then on ‘Trinity New Book’.) is excellent:

“It is a ”triptych“:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptych on the theme of the omnipresence of power and violence. The title itself refers not only to the traditional image of the Supreme Power in classical painting, but also, for example, to the code name of the ominous project with which Oppenheimer lead a team of atomic physicists to produce the first atom bomb. Based on three probing themes, De Keyzer grabs contemporary power, its senseless violence and worldwide devastation by the hair with oppressive images: Tableaux d’Histoire, Tableaux de Guerre, Tableaux Politiques. The first tableaux cast a surprising light on the theatrical that has characterised power since time immemorial and without which it could not exist. The second perspective shows us violence as a timeless, placeless phenomenon. War appears in an aesthetic of the sublime, although subdued and painful, as glorification, heroism and justification are absent. The third part takes us behind the scenes of political power, which should, when all is said and done, actually be the power of the people: the façade, the lobbying, the backrooms, the haggling?”

Picture 008 of the woman in the crowd with her hands together looking to the side, with the political figures in the posters in the background tells so much with one frame. Also picture 097—the view from governments’ top.

Carl’s use of flash reminds me of Bruce Gilden’s (I had written ‘John Gilmore’s’ here before!) pictures, but with historical, religious, military and political madness, bigotry and propaganda lit up.