Notes on Panel Discussion: Regarding the Pain of Others

The Museum of Jewish Heritage held a panel discussion last Wednesday entitled “Regarding the Pain of Others.” The panel addressed uses of images of atrocity and was presented in conjunction with the current exhibition The Shooting of Jews in Ukraine: Holocaust by Bullets.  I’ve produced lots of notes on this talk, given my continued interest in the topic (I’ve written history papers on topics like American lynching photographs and the exhibition of the S-21 photographs at MOMA, for starters).  The panel takes its title from Susan Sontag’s 2003 book, where she reconsiders themes she originally explored in On Photography.  It has been years since I’ve read either book.  Maybe elaborating these notes will inspire me to go back and review that work.

And here, there is a jump because graphic images follow.

Museum director David G. Marwell began by reflecting on his own memory of how many disturbing images were featured in their exhibitions, and his experience walking through the shows to verify or discount that recollection.  His sincere opening comments revealed the complexity of the topic and the roll that such images play on the walls of a museum and in the minds of museum goers.  He seemed a little taken aback by how his memory differed from what he actually found in the exhibits, admitting that this finding left him in an inconclusive place.  Clearly, the differing opinions and areas of expertise from the other panelists would be greatly welcomed.

He projected the disturbing images taken in Ukraine that were shown in the current exhibition.  He didn’t have much to say about them aside from describing what was happening within the picture frame.  I was listening for a definition of ‘disturbing,’ so that I could understand what criteria he used to separate these images out from the rest.  No such definition was offered.  All images showed dead bodies, people about to die, and perpetrators either in the act of killing or surveying the recently dead.  I don’t know if the editing criteria is a result of something being self-evidently disturbing about these beyond the other images not shown, of if it has something to do with Marwell’s humility before the topic.

Sydney Schanberg is a news corresponded and accidental photographer.  Schanberg began by showing his own photographs as matter of fact “this is what I have from the ugly parts of 20th century history that I found myself in the middle of.”  Most of the images were from Cambodia.  He started taking photographs for the self-serving aim of getting more people to read his stories.  He is genuinely upset about the misery that innocent people were put through in these wars, though he stated clearly that he is not a pacifist.  He eventually grew to like his photographs and in some ways trusts their power more than words because of the potential for viewers to identify with the subjects.  He noted that efforts to maintain credibility often encourage emotional control.  This support of detached rationality seemed to anger him.  There was something inappropriate about it given what was at stake in the situations he reported on.  He hoped and continues to hope that difficult images of these situations will be published in order to generate discomfort in the viewers of the developed world, motivating them to question and engage with what is happening.

Leora Kahn is an activist and curator who works with human rights groups and has founded the non-profit Proof: Media for Social Justice. Kahn was adamant about the need to publish disturbing images in the interest of generating public outcry and intervention in circumstances of human rights abuses.  She presented several iconic images, including Eddie Adams’ images of the murder of a Vietcong by Saigon, noting the public response in America and resulting policy changes.  She referenced the photograph of the body of a charred Iraqi solder that was not widely published (Ad Busters published it, as I recall, but no major publications in the US…), suggesting that if images like these had made it into the press, the reaction to the war might have been very different. She equates seeing with righteous indignation and intervention, despite herself offering examples to the contrary.  The notably example of this was an image of a dead American solder being dragged through the streets in Somalia, which prompted the US to pull out of Somalia but then to not send aid to Rwanda shortly after when the genocide there started.  Perhaps this was more a critique of Clinton than of the photographs though.  I sympathize with Kahn’s insistence on worldy engagement, but feel like her expectation of photographs, at least as it came off to me in this panel, is somewhat optimistic.

Clifford Chanin, senior program adviser for the museum to be built on the site of the World Trade Center, was concerned about the possibility of traumatizing museumgoers by showing photographs of the 9/11 attacks.  He largely challenged Kahn’s insistence on publishing disturbing photographs was necessary for promoting human rights causes.  What if people are so disturbed by the images that they can’t act?  The dilemma he is facing as a curator is very real because as he points out, terrorist attacks are meant to terrorize so clearly the media produced about them can perpetuate this terror.  I was hoping to hear a little about the strategies the museum was considering for addressing this, or perhaps the questions they are asking of the photographs as they look through them, but Chanin stopped at breaking down the phases of the terrorist event.  There is the initial spectacle of the towers hit by the planes, the terror of being trapped in the building, the resignation to death as represented by jumpers from the building (I am reminded of the immediate news reports about the Triangle Waste Shirt Factory fires), and the acts of witnessing and recounting the events unfolding.  Maybe Chanin is caught in the same difficult position as Marwell, the curator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage hosting the panel discussion.  Clearly, the story of these pivotal events in history needs to be told.  What that telling services and what exactly is at stake is somewhat unclear and hopelessly politically charged.  While all the images he showed were images I am keenly aware of, the initial familiarity of the photograph did not preclude me from gradually feeling uneasy and slipping into a place of existential angst as they persisted on the screen.

Svetlana Mintcheva, director of the Arts Advocacy Project of the National Coalition Against Censorship, offered something of an outsider opinion, both as coming from an arts background and as having a clear agenda for making visuals available to the public.  Mintcheva noted that questions of what to show and what not to show inherently come up against more political resistance when room is made for multiple interpretations of the work.  As an example, she showed stills from video art of animals being killed with sledgehammers.  The work met with vehement protests from PETA when exhibited in a museum in Los Angeles.  PETA’s own website has many video that are equally if not more disturbing than the art piece, but since the artistic work did not unequivocally condemn killing animals, PETA felt assured in challenging its exhibition.  Mintcheva offered an unsettling complement to this argument that atrocious images are publicly acceptable when supporting ideological and institutional mandates.  The Florida court apparently posted an image on their website of a man recently executed by electric chair to demonstrate the success of the new execution tool.  The bruised and bloody face of the man crowded the picture frame, and was for me the most difficult image to look at during the whole presentation, perhaps because I as an American feel somehow implicated in what is depicted.  The image invoked a response in me that Kahn would perhaps hope for.  Mintcheva encouraged us to be savvy about the ideological trappings of what is deemed acceptable to view and what is not.  She seems very much in support of spaces, like art institutions, that allow for viewing material in such a way that supports multiple interpretations.  She also intimated that as much as museums ostensibly tell stories about the past, the particular stories we choose to tell about the past may reflect equally on issues of the present.