Richard Mosse - Photographs London Wednesday, May 18, 2016 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    Since Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, depictions of the Congo have often paired images of the primitive jungle with accounts of violent deeds, creating a politically charged and dark narrative in the Western imagination. Aware of the current political climate and the history of Western notions of the Congo, Richard Mosse sought to document the current state of the country while battling with the constraints of traditional war photography and his position as a white man with a camera. Using Kodak Aerochrome, a colour infrared film originally developed for military reconnaissance, Mosse photographed an area that had been engaged in violent rebellion since the 1990s. This choice of film rendered the lush jungle greens and military uniforms of the rebels in lavenders, crimsons and hot pink, confronting us with an ethereal, otherworldly landscape and turning our visual expectations on its head. As Mosse explains, 'My photography was a personal struggle with the disparity between my own limited powers of representation and the unspeakable world that confronted me'. This haunting series highlights the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the tension between representation, art, fiction, documentary photography and photojournalism.

    Mosse represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and was awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2014. His work is in many collections including, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

26

Endless Plain of Fortune

2011
Chromogenic print.
101.7 x 127 cm (40 x 50 in.)
Signed in ink, printed title, date and number 1/5 on a gallery label affixed to the reverse of the flush-mount.

Estimate
£8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for £13,750

Contact Specialist
Genevieve Janvrin
Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7318 4092

Photographs

London Auction 19 May 2016