Cindy Kane Exhibition in NEW YORK, helmets for reporters...

19 février 2015

Cindy Kane Exhibition in NEW YORK, helmets for reporters...

Une exposition particulière mais forte dans le thème évoqué. Cindy Kane réalise ici une belle prestation à New York au sein du Flatiron building. Cindy Kane travailla sur le thème des reporters de guerre. Fait assez unique, elle a demandé aux journalistes de l'aider dans cette réalisation.

Elle utilise les casques américain utilisés au cours de la guerre du Vietnam. Par le biais de peintures, de dessins, de collages, chaque pièce unique nous raconte une histoire. Des centaines de milliers de personnes passent chaque jour le long des vitrines. Il est d'ailleurs surprenant de voir ce genre de choses en plein New York...Mais tellement intéressant. Cette exposition est dédiée à Mr Shadid, mort en 2012 en Syrie au cours d'un reportage de trop...Mort pour la liberté d'expression....

Le New York times stipule d'ailleurs :

“Soldiers are our boots on the ground, but journalists are our eyes on the ground,” said Cheryl McGinnis, curator of the artist Cindy Kane's current exhibition in Manhattan’s Flatiron district.

New York Times journalists collaborated with Ms. Kane for “Eyes on the Ground — Journals of War,” which is on display in the Sprint Flatiron Prow Art Space on Fifth Avenue, now through Jan. 2. The show provides an intimate glimpse into life as a war reporter. The opening reception on Nov. 18, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., is your chance to meet the artist, view the exhibit and likely see some familiar bylines.

Ms. Kane collected reporting notes, business cards, credentials and other mementos from the Times reporters and editors Steven Erlanger, Raymond Bonner, Kirk Semple, Jane Perlez, Ethan Bronner, Anthony Shadid, the photographer Lynsey Addario and more than 40 of their colleagues.

Ms. Kane says the group was assembled through a chain of referrals. Each correspondent connected her to others whose work they respected. The artist then collaged the collected materials onto bullet-pocked, Vietnam-era steel helmets. The helmets are meant to dramatize the connection between journalists and soldiers.

“I was very pleased to be invited to join such a fine group of journalists, beginning with one of the people I have most admired, Ward Just, who was superb in Vietnam before turning to novels, let alone so many fine colleagues, both at The Times and other outlets,” said Mr. Erlanger.

Mr. Bronner was the Jerusalem bureau chief when Ms. Kane invited him to contribute to the show. “I sent her pages from a trip I had taken to Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt in early 2008,” he said. “I thought the idea of putting these very personal remains of my experience onto an impersonal combat helmet, alongside those of colleagues I have known or admired, was a moving one.”

Ms.Kane says that she grew up with an intense admiration for foreign correspondents.

Once she’d begun the helmets project, she became a reporter herself researching and corresponding with the reporters whose experiences she would portray. “It was a great privilege to have been trusted with the paper trails that these journalists sent to me,” Ms. Kane told me. “I still miss the intensity of those two years of research, focus, correspondence and gathering information while working on the project.”

More than 500,000 Manhattan pedestrians pass the art space each day and the curators hope the work will serve to remind passers-by of the cost of war. The sentiment is echoed in the exhibition’s dedication to Mr. Shadid, who died while reporting in Syria in 2012.

“I’m impressed with what she has done,” said Mr. Bonner. “I was reluctant at first, as I don’t think journalists should be the story. But she proved her bona fides, and as I recall, she came with the recommendation of Geraldine Brooks.”

Mr. Bonner, who also sent pages of notes, said he is curious to see which ones the artist used. “With my handwriting, like that of most journalists, I may not even be able to tell from reading the notes,” he said.

Check out the exhibition and try to decipher the handwriting of Times reporters and others.