Josh Azzarella

JOSH AZZARELLA
UNTITLED # 13 (AHSF), 2006, UNTITLED # 14 (LYNNDIE), 2006
UNTITLED # 23 (LYNNDIED), 2006, UNTITLED # 24 (GREEN GLOVES),
ARCHIVAL DIGITAL C-PRINT, EDITION OF 7 + 3AP. 20” X 30”
COURTESY THE ARTIST + DCKT CONTEMPORARY

Visual representation of the war can be characterized as being divided between “spectacular visibility and near invisibility” — of keeping some images present in the memory and by consigning others to obscurity and oblivion. The work of Josh Azzarella begins with this examination of collective memory and the question of iconicity. What characteristics mark an image as iconic and keep it in the public mind as an emblem of an era? Who or what entity deems an image iconic? Azzarella scans the media and Internet for such images and then subverts their power by painstakingly erasing their volatile content and offering a glimpse of trauma undone: the planes fly by and the Twin Towers don’t fall; Lyndie England poses in an empty hallway in the Abu–Ghraib prison, pointing at nothing; a guard looks into the face of his digital camera next to an empty box. While simultaneously positing a sanitized alternative, the works call into question the influence that these images — disseminated by the mass media and replayed ad nauseum — have in constructing a historical narrative and their subsequent imprint on our collective memory. By manipulating the images of these climactic moments and damaging evidence, Azzarella’s work also brings into question the production and censorship of images in the coverage of war.