Conflict, Time, Photography

I recently went to the Conflict, Time, Photography exhibition at Tate Modern. I arrived at Tate Modern a few minutes before opening, and already there was a small crowd gathered outside – mostly eager tourists hungry to consume some of the best modern art there is available. After my experience with the Matisse Cut-Outs last year (when the galleries were incredibly full to the point of overcrowding), I decided to buy my exhibition ticket immediatley and go straight in.

A quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five preceeds the exhbition, which is arranged, not chronologically as one would expect, but by time from the act of violence the image depicts. For example, the first room contains a series of photographs taken seconds after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, whilst the last room contains a series of photographs taken 100 years after deserters were executed during the First World War.

Some images were almost amusing, such as a series depicting the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, an organisation with creativity at it’s heart. The University is based in the former Führerbau, Adolf Hitler’s private headquarters, where Hitler and Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, which ultimatley resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Hitler’s own office is now used as a practice room.

The exhibition was incredibly moving and thought provoking, with many pieces being particularly poignant as they dealt more with how human lives have been affected by war, rather than how war has left its mark on the landscape, although this was covered as well.

The exhibition is best viewed in absolute silence, which for the majority of my visit, was the case. There were, however, a couple of people who wanted to discuss the work infront of them, which was OK, except that they could have whispered their thoughts rather than sharing them with everone else.

Conflict, Time, Photography runs until 15th March 2015, and is well worth a visit, especially catching it earlier in the day when there are less people and less noise. For more information about the exhibition, and to see a short video introduction with Dan Snow, please visit the Tate’s website at www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/conflict-time-photography