Richard Mosse: Infra

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The ineffable refers to a philosophical term with roots in Romanticism and the aesthetic of the sublime. Jacques Rancière argues that today’s understanding of the sublime in contemporary art derives from Jean-François Lyotard’s misreading of Kant in The Inhuman (1991), for whom the inability of the faculty of the imagination to picture or fathom what it has been shown gives way to the moral imperative to understand through the higher faculty of reason.34 Mosse characterizes his work "as not a reaction against journalism, but rather an artist working in places [where] journalists are working." Incoming, Curve Gallery, Barbican Centre, London; [14] [15] Le Lieu unique, Nantes, France, 2019. [16]

You can see people have been chopped off,” he says gesturing to a man’s head and torso, centimeters away from his legs. “I left them like that; I could’ve taken them out and faked it, but I really like the way it points to [the image’s] construction and reveals its unraveling.” The final photographs are printed on a shimmering metallic digital c-paper. Infra’s most interesting aspect is its referentiality. What I mean by this is the way it draws in knowledge and associations from far beyond the photograph’s literal frame. Its interpretation requires us to return the image to the context of experience, social experience and social memory. In other words, the isolated image is not isolated at all; it belongs. It stands out for its discursive nature, creating its own relational space, as theorised by political geographer David Harvey. Briefly, absolute space is our norm (mapping, Euclidean geometry, urban grids); whereas relative space takes us into referentiality, applicable to text, image or both: a problematic space of non-Euclidean geometries in which the point of view is unstable. Relational space maps out the relationship between the object and the influences bearing upon it. A photograph of Ground Zero or Tienamen Square, for example, evokes other spaces, and the connotations proliferate.17 Berger’s radial model is relational in drawing the mind outwards, regardless of Mosse’s personal views on the matter. In what follows, Berger’s radial serves to identify Infra’s most significant elements. Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator, trans. Gregory Elliott, London and New York: Verso, 2009, pp. 83-105; p. 96 Vincent, Alice (12 May 2014). "Richard Mosse wins Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 13 May 2014. His images depict in hyper-vivid color the landscape of war and those who live within this world of violence and upheaval.In this video for leading contemporary art magazine Frieze, Mosse introduces his latest work and touches on the dissonance of rendering aesthetically sublime such scenes of turmoil. Boxed set. Edition of 250 copies. Includes a vinyl record with sound and music, designed by Ben Frost; a poster featuring an image by Mosse; a transcription from the film; and a signed-and-numbered copy of the book. Richard Mosse wins 2017 Prix Pictet photography award". Financial Times, 4 May 2017. Retrieved 5 May 2017 Prix Pictet 2017: Richard Mosse wins prize with heat-map shots of refugees". The Guardian, 4 May 2017. Retrieved 5 May 2017 What is significant? The combination of human beings and landscape? The fact that people who spend most of their time in hiding, camouflaged by a complicit landscape are willing to be portrayed in the open? The colour? All these photographs are tinged with pink, but La Vie En Rose explicitly draws attention to this aspect in its title which associates a 1950s Edith Piaf song to its odd pigmentation. Omitted from the Cobh installation was Untitled, a portrait of a young man whose face has been mutilated by a machete, such that his teeth protrude outwards. Here the war comes traumatically close to the surface. We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful features two friends embracing in one of many undramatic moments, where strangeness of what is foreign is overshadowed by the familiarity of camaraderie, which is not. 2. Framing the frame

Mosse likens the images to the classical paintings of Bruegeland Bosch. “You see all these little figures living their narratives,” he explains. “Also the way perspective is—there’s something bizarre happening where there’s no horizon, it’s flattened space—also evokes those painters.” The effect is purposeful, resulting from his preference to shoot the camps from above. One might therefore be inclined to think that the last part of the exhibition corresponds to Mosse's need to move away, not only figuratively, from his main themes, an escape towards the uncontaminated landscape, towards the regenerative force of a wise and resilient nature. But on the contrary, even his most recent works, such as Ultra and especially Tristes Tropiques, contribute decisively to tracing a clear and uncompromising arc of research. In the first series, produced between 2028 and 2020, Mosse uses the expedient of ultraviolet fluorescence to ensure that no aspect of nature, including the most violent, is overlooked. In the second series, in which the line of action is dictated by satellite vision, he uses the Brazilian Pantanal, the scene of the now infamous fires, to record even the most imperceptible climatic changes. Deutsche Börse 2014: Richard Mosse wins photography prize – in pictures". The Guardian. 12 May 2014 . Retrieved 13 May 2014.Aperture Foundation and Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting are publishing a monograph of Richard Mosse’s Infra, with an introduction by Adam Hochschild, which will be available to view at the gallery for the duration of the exhibition. Hilde Van Gelder, ‘The Theorization of Photography Today: Two Models’ in Elkins, Photography Theory, pp. 299-304.