Exhibition Review: Devour the Land War and American Landscape Photography since 197
From the series Acknowledgment of Danger. © Nina Berman; image courtesy of the artist
By Nicholas Rutolo
We’ve all seen the destruction of war, and how it can create desolation after an explosion; notably, images of Nagasaki and Hiroshima come to mind when we think of the destructive power of war. It’s rare to see before and after images of war’s destructive path, we usually only see the after effects and the immense devastation left for the survivors. Harvard presents this reality while opening our eyes to what it looks like behind the scenes and what the aftermath looks like decades and centuries, on the land as well as on the people. What happens after war has ended? What does it look like when war is happening? What happens to the places war ravages? Harvard Art Museums has put on a display of landscape photography depicting the horrors and aftermath, since 1970, of what an appetite for destruction brings.
From the series Bombs in Our Backyard. Harvard Art Museums, Fund for the Acquisition of Photographs, 2020. © Ashley Gilbertson/VII; image courtesy of the artist
Landscapes change of image is pretty predictable, ranging from a broken fence seen as the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War, to the wreckage and barebones remains of 9/11, the landscapes closed off due to radiation, and the destitution left for people and animals left in the wake, but one of the most harrowing images isn’t one of radiation, or the poverty of a population, but of animals. Dead Animals #1 which sees dozens of large animals piled on a shore, rotting and becoming a scavengers food. It’s painful to witness and mirrors the atrocious toll of human casualties, bodies piling up quicker than can be removed; it seems so senseless and raises the question: do the ends actually justify the means? Following this with Dying Cow Wanders in Burning Oil Fields, in which a cow approaches a tank with it’s ammunition, which is nearly as large as the cow, over a burning field in Kuwait, allows us to put ourselves in the animals place; in the face of war and its tools, we’re nothing but helpless animals staring down the barrel of a tank, trying to navigate what’s left of a world that’s burning.
Harvard creates a non-linear timeline; we know places looked like before they were ravished, but we see the contemplation and strategy of planning out war, the devastation, and that which is left behind. They do this by presenting moments scattered throughout the last 50 years that represent those ideas, so even though we don’t see all of the pieces within a single setting, we can paint a complete picture. Harvard presents not only the military for the scientists and their research, like a lab technician smiling in a lab, or the control room for a nuclear reactor, it looks mundane until you recognize what all of the machinery and chemistry is used for. Harvard does all of this and creates what is almost like a warning, showing images to help us realize that the war isn’t relegated to the battlefield. They also presents pictures of a Citco Refinery and an ExxonMobil Plastic Plant, seeming to say that we’re destroying our home in ways that match the destruction of explosives and war. There’s plenty to say about what’s left in war’s wake, but if we don’t remind ourselves how this happened and reckon how society hasn’t changed, we’re headed on a path of destruction and all that’ll be left are cemeteries and burial grounds.
From the series Disarming the Prairie. Pigment print. Harvard Art Museums, Richard and Ronay Menschel Fund for the Acquisition of Photographs, 2020. © Terry Evans; image courtesy of the artist.
Hell has been left on our doorstep, and it helps to bring into perspective the effect America’s militaristic ambitions have on the rest of the world, because we do a remarkable job of dissociating away from atrocities that don’t directly effect us, and paralleling our destructive powers with damage done on us shows that there is truly no victor in war. You can see Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography since 1970 in the Special Exhibitions Gallery at the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts from now until January 16, 2022.
