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Points of Memory: A timeline of Conflict, Time, Photography at Tate Modern

To mark Armistice Day 2014, we invite you to view a selection of photographs, of scenes touched by conflict and taken in the seconds, days, weeks and years after the event, that feature in Tate Modern's forthcoming exhibition Conflict, Time, Photography 

Near Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin

Don McCullin
Near Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin 1961 
© Don McCullin

Curator Simon Baker shares the ambitions behind the exhibition, which coincides with the centenary of the start of the First World War, and highlights time as a crucial aspect of the medium:

We wanted to think about the way photographers have photographed moments of conflict after they have happened, thinking about their long-term effects. So rather than having a chronology of many different conflicts one after another, the works are grouped together depending on how long after the event they were made: moments later, days later, weeks later and so on up to a hundred years later.

A Timeline of Conflict, Time, Photography at Tate Modern

Moments later

Luc Delahaye US Bombing on Taliban Positions c2001

Luc Delahaye US Bombing on Taliban Positions c2001
© Luc Delahaye

Days, weeks, months later

Matsumoto Eiichi, Shadow of a soldier remaining on the wooden wall of the Nagasaki military headquarters, 1945

Matsumoto Eiichi
Shadow of a soldier remaining on the wooden wall of the Nagasaki military headquarters (Minami-Yamata machi, 4.5km from Ground Zero) 1945
Gelatin silver print on paper
315mm x 207mm 
© Estate of Matsumoto Eiichi, courtesy Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography 

Days, weeks, months later

Simon Norfolk, Bullet scarred cinema at the Palace of Culture in the Karte Char district of Kabul, 2003

Simon Norfolk
Bullet scarred cinema at the Palace of Culture in the Karte Char district of Kabul. This area saw fighting between the Hikmetyar and Rabbani and then between Rabbani and the Hazaras 2003
C-type print on paper
508mm x 609mm
© Simon Norfolk, private collection 

1-10 years later

Jim Goldberg, Prized Possession, from the series Democratic Republic of Congo, 2008

Jim Goldberg
Prized Possession from the series Democratic Republic of Congo 2008
C-type print on paper
508mm x 406mm
© Jim Goldberg, courtesy the artist and Pace McGill Gallery, New York 

10-25 years later

Don McCullin Friedrichstrasse Berlin 1961

Don McCullin
Friedrichstrasse, Berlin 1961
Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
380 x 380 mm 
Tate © Don McCullin
View main page for this artwork

10-25 years later

Shomei Tomatsu, Iron helmet with parts of human skull attached. Near the hypocenter, 1963

Shomei Tomatsu
Iron helmet with parts of human skull attached. Near the hypocenter, 1963 1963
Gelatin silver print on paper
226mm x 303mm
© Shomei Tomatsu, courtesy Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography 

80-100 years later

Hrair Sarkissian, Istory, 2010

Hrair Sarkissian
Istory 2010
C-type print on paper
158mm x 198mm
© Hrair Sarkissian, courtesy Arsen Kalfayan, Kalfayan Galleries, Athens 

Conflict, Time, Photography is on display at Tate Modern from 26 November until 15 March 2015

See also

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