The enduring attempt to come to grips with war

February 21, 2008|Cate McQuaid, Globe Correspondent

Trauma can prompt storytelling. Some who experience trauma or loss tell their stories again and again until they begin to make sense. "War Stories," the small, nuanced exhibit at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, buzzes with dozens of stories about the war in Iraq, each carving out its nook of understanding.

The centerpiece of the exhibit, which was organized by Lisa Tung, MassArt's director of curatorial programs and professional galleries, is the powerful installation "9 Scripts from a Nation at War." It approaches war narratives from several angles. The artist team of David Thorne, Katya Sander, Ashley Hunt, Sharon Hayes, and Andrea Geyer presents video viewing stations, like study carrels in a library, each with a different video and a different "script" from the war. Some are read by performers, while others come straight from the mouths of the authors - a BBC reporter, or a soldier making a speech about her experience in Iraq.

Edited down, these texts might have made powerful theater. But the artists don't edit; one video, a reenactment of a tribunal investigating a detainee for war crimes, is more than four hours long. In this piece, the performers regularly stand and move to the next chair, then become the next character; ultimately, the actor playing the inquisitor plays the accused. It's like sand shifting beneath the viewer's feet. We want a story that will make sense of the war; Thorne, Sander, Hunt, Hayes, and Geyer refuse to make it that easy for us.

The other two bodies of work here are a little easier, in that way - they do see victims and aggressors. For Nina Berman, the victims are wounded and traumatized veterans. Her heart-rending color photographs, most coupled with text from interviews with her subjects, draw a vivid picture of the damage war wreaks on young soldiers. One image without text is especially harrowing. "Marine Wedding" has the groom, in dress uniform, his face a map of hell. He has lost his ears, his nostrils, his hair. His perfect bride stands beside him, grim and forlorn.

Jenny Holzer's "Redaction Paintings" take declassified US government documents and turn them into art objects. The silkscreened painting "001996 (Light Purple Black)" shows mug shots taken of accused soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. The photos have been photocopied many times over; they appear here as grainy silhouettes. The soldiers wear hats, and the dark images eerily recall the pictures of the hooded prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Each of these works sheds a little light on the complicated story of the Iraq war. It's the best artists can do in wartime. It helps.