Afghanistan in Four Frames February 9, 2011

Public Reception: Wednesday, February 9, 5:30 – 7:30pm

The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery’s Art at City Hall is pleased to present Afghanistan in Four Frames. This groundbreaking and timely exhibition features works by four photojournalists who have embedded with various military units/forces in Afghanistan over the past five years.
Gallery Director and exhibition curator Meg Shiffler states, “Afghanistan in Four Frames continues the SFAC Gallery’s commitment to creating exhibitions at SF City Hall that illuminate international concerns. The remarkable photojournalists in this exhibition share unique perspectives that bring us closer to understanding the varied human conditions of war in Afghanistan.”
In early 2010 James Lee, a San Francisco based photographer/ writer and Marine Corp veteran, traveled alongside Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) near the border of Pakistan. His resulting photo essay, Counter-Narratives, sensitively depicts the human costs of protracted conflict and a ground-level perspective of ANSF operations far from any US military presence. Another Bay Area photojournalist, Eros Hoagland, has twice embedded with US troops and once with a British unit. His high contrast black and white photographs in Seige Perilous perfectly portray the stark tension between the western military presence and the local landscape and people in the Korengal Valley. In Women at War, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Lynsey Addario, based in Delhi, depicts what life is like for female US military personnel deployed to Afghanistan. Her essay illustrates women soldiers training and patrolling just like their male counterpoints, but due to religious customs, the women also perform duties that put them in the unique position of direct contact with civilian women and children. New York based Teru Kuwayama has been shooting in Afghanistan and its surrounding areas for nine years, both embedded with the US military and on his own. Using his low-tech Holga and Leica film cameras, Teru has remained focused on telling both the story of the war, and the lives it affects – both civilian and military. His images have a timeless, dreamlike quality; an aesthetic that distances the viewer from a typically crisp photojournalistic perspective, instead providing an intimate, emotional, and perhaps poetic view of the devastating effects of war.
Location: Ground Floor of City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl.
Viewing Hours: Monday – Friday, 8am – 8pm, Free

Official Website: http://www.sfartscommission.org/gallery/2010/afghanistan-in-four-frames/