FROM THE LAND OF MIRACLES Inauguration of

FROM THE LAND OF MIRACLES
Inauguration of the photographic exhibition by Wendy Sue Lamm
With Wendy Sue Lamm
Presented by Andrea Jacchia and Giancarlo Pauletto
Read Wendy Sue Lamm’s Time Incarnate by Giancarlo Pauletto
Can a tormented land, fractured with hatred between its peoples, still be called the "Land of Miracles?"
The work of American photographer Wendy Sue Lamm, who forged her skills as a photojournalist at
France Press, with her rapid shooting technique and immediacy that are at the basis of journalistic
awareness, is an attempt to provide a sincere and meaningful response to this anguishing question.
The photographer's lens captures fragments of images, moments of blood and terror, juxtaposing
these with other moof tenderness and delicacy and, at times, irony, and in this way illustrates the
absurdity and the abstract – but, unfortunately, real – nature of the daily life of Israelis and Palestinians
alike.
Day-to-day life revolving around fear and death, guerrilla warfare and reprisals, immortalized on film
with a delicately ironical eye to describe a land where the true miracle would be peaceful coexistence,
the possibility of waking up each morning, and simply living normally.
The exhibition, arranged by Giancarlo Pauletto, is promoted and organized by the Municipality of
Pordenone as part of the Dedica festival, in collaboration with Associazione Thesis and l’Agenzia
Contrasto.
Read Wendy Sue Lamm’s Time Incarnate by Giancarlo Pauletto, I successori by Andrea Jacchia.
Wendy Sue Lamm, fotografa, nata a Los Angeles nel 1964. Laureata nel 1988 all’Università di Berkeley in California, dal
1998 è entrata a far parte dell’agenzia Contrasto. Le sue foto sono esposte nei più importanti musei del mondo e vengono
regolarmente pubblicate su prestigiose riviste quali il “New York Times Magazine”, “Newsweek”, “Geo”, “Der Spiegel”,
“Elle”. Per la sua attività ha ricevuto prestigiosi riconoscimenti quali il World Press Photo Award, importante premio di
fotogiornalismo internazionale e il Premio Pulitzer Spot News Reporting nel 1996 per le sue fotografie del terremoto di
Northridge.
Giancarlo Pauletto, critico e storico dell’arte, è impegnato nelle attività d’arti visive del Centro di Iniziative Culturali di
Pordenone. Ha curato per il Museo Civico della città, per la Provincia di Pordenone e per altri enti pubblici e privati,
mostre, cataloghi e monografie.
Andrea Jacchia, giornalista, fine intellettuale e attento viaggiatore oltre che esperto d’arte, cura la pagina di Diario.
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Il copyright dell'intero contenuto di questo documento è di proprietà di Thesis Associazione Culturale, l'utente è autorizzato a
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WENDY SUE LAMM’S TIME INCARNATE
From the land of miracles
by Giancarlo Pauletto
What we see on television and read in the papers, or what we find in books and magazine articles in
our personal attempts to reach an understanding of the facts about the current situation in Palestine,
all serves to show that the title of this exhibition of photographs by Wendy Sue Lamm is not only
appropriate, but is a beautiful title as well.
From the Land of Miracles is an exhibition that provides a perfect complement to the presence of
Amos Oz in Pordenone. The title is appropriate because Palestine is a land of miracles above all (and,
we might say, obviously) in relation to the three great religions - Jewish, Christian and Islamic - that
consider this land sacred. All three are present in this exhibition, in images that show their social as
well as ritual aspects.
But Palestine is also a land of miracles because, in the midst of so much tension, violence,
desperation and terror, life goes on. The daily routine somehow wins out, and beside soldiers outfitted
for combat we see people going to the beach, swimming in the Dead Sea, or doing their shopping at
the market, while children play, a gardener waters a lawn, Russian Orthodox pilgrims bathe in the
River Jordan, and someone thinks of putting new plants in a new garden.
The key to the exhibition’s aesthetic is its directness, the use of close-ups, the emphasis on a present
time that is immediately felt in the sharp perspectives, the figures, the colours of the images.
It did not necessarily have to be like this. There is much photographic coverage of Palestine in which
the key element is not daily life but the eternal religious character of this land, so significant for the
history of so many people, expressed in visions of light and shadow that make it the suspended
theatre of a divine epiphany. Wendy Sue Lamm’s vision, on the contrary, is characterised by a deep
sense of things, bodies, faces - one could even say smells - and her lens does not so much frame the
scene as enter into it, drawing us in as well and forcing us to participate.
Many examples can be given. At Hebron, on the West Bank, a rock-throwing Palestinian is killed by
Israeli soldiers during a confrontation. The violence of this image is expressed in the bent-over position
of the soldiers, with their weapons poised; in the gesture of the thrower, an instant before falling to the
ground; in the desolate materialness of the rocks littering the pavement. There is here an evident will
to bear witness to the event.
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Il copyright dell'intero contenuto di questo documento è di proprietà di Thesis Associazione Culturale, l'utente è autorizzato a
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There is no shrinking from the immediacy of what is happening. Similarly, in the next, terrible image,
from Jerusalem, we see a rescue squad rushing to carry away a victim of a suicide attack in a
pedestrian zone in the centre of the city.
Here, too, the framing of the image emphasises the photographer’s intention to draw us immediately
into the event. Rather than centering the image on the victim’s body, she causes our eye to examine
the context, to notice the gaze of the onlookers, the almost estranged figure of the girl in black, the
signs along the street where the attack took place.
An identical intention can be felt in the next photograph, which portrays a poster put up in memory of
victims of terrorism in the central Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. The eye moves down the
image and comes to rest at the centre of the scene. The bent-over figures in the foreground serve to
pull the viewer into the space depicted.
They are all like this, so it is evidently a question of choice, a conscious decision to reinforce this
“being in the middle”, this “participation”, by highlighting the material quality of things and by using
close-ups of details, hands, faces, signs: the red flesh of a freshly butchered sheep; a white dove for
sale, situated in the centre of the photograph; brightly coloured tomatoes in the market; a hand
touching the Wailing Wall; or a close-up of another hand covering the face of an arrested suspect.
There are also scenes that are more formally composed, though never lacking in that sense of
immediacy, such as the image of a teenage couple embracing during a holiday celebration, framed
within gauzy veils of pink, almost like wedding decorations, or the baby Jesus statuettes on sale in a
shop near the Church of the Nativity. There is the image of Tel Aviv youngsters, perfectly composed
within the compact frame of the photograph, and two pictures taken in the ultra-orthodox quarter of
Mea Shearim, where the dark colours of hats and clothing, and the light colours of the flyers thrown
into the air or of the pavement below, make it inevitable to see this as photography based on
composition.
So the exhibition’s title is appropriate.
But it is beautiful as well, because if a title is appropriate, if it defines precisely the nature of the theme
- in this case the nature of Wendy Sue Lamm’s vision of Palestine - then it is also a beautiful title, one
that could not be different, that we could not change. Just as we would never want to change the two
images that respectively open and close the exhibition.
In the first of these, some children are bathing in the Mediterranean, in the Gaza Strip area. One of
them is playing - or so it seems - with a plastic bottle that has two small fish inside. This is a surreal
image, almost like a magic trick, and is a fitting introduction to the situations and “miracles” that we can
see in this series of photographs that bear extraordinary witness to a historic tragedy, but also to an
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unstoppable will to live, to a land destined to be a testing ground for the sincerity of so many cultural
and political positions. In the last photograph, a figure struggles its way through the mud on the banks
of the Dead Sea. This figure necessarily attracts our attention because it is a human figure, but most of
the photographic space is taken up by the dark, dense mud that seems eternally to imprison whatever
falls into it.
It is hard not to see this truly intense image as a powerful metaphor for the negative forces that
tenaciously block the road to peace - a peace that would be a great sign not only for the land of
Palestine, but for the whole world.
THE SUCCESSORS
by Andrea Jacchia
I once had a dream; we were living in London already. Suddenly a group of people burst through the
door, saying we had to leave. Two thousand years earlier their ancestors used to live there. Hence, the
house was theirs. I must admit that, in the light of the unspeakable horrors which we have witnessed,
there wasn’t or didn’t seem to be any alternative. And I’m glad for each of them that saved himself by
going there.
Ernst H. Gombrich, Topics of Our Time.
This set of photos by Wendy Sue Lamm suggests another, rather invisible, one: that of Wendy Sue
Lamm actually snapping the pictures in Israel and the Palestinian areas. We could look at her work it
this way: Wendy Sue Lamm experienced the longest and muddiest war of our times firsthand; then she
went through the life of that conflict and the sinister movement of an enduring hate. The result took
different forms: portraits, sketches, profiles or sudden all-embracing pictures, broad snapshots of the
events, where anyone (Palestinians, Israelis, outside observers) can focus his/her attention or
passions on the details that most strike him/her: think of Guernica, at how we linger on the detail of the
lamp or of the Cubist bull’s head; or think of yourself in front of Paolo Uccello’s Battle of San Romano,
losing yourself amidst the horses and lances. But all these pictures have something that’s absent from
most of the numerous photos about the Israelis’ and Palestinians’ mirrored hate: Wendy Sue Lamm’s
art persuades you to ask yourself what or who comes along after those pictures; what news item could
be lurking round the corner from a battle, a funeral, a snapshot of market life, a gathering of kids on the
beach. In other words: it’s not very common, when staring at a picture, to ask yourself what life that
image’s characters might have. It could be easily said that Wendy’s more attracted to people than to a
people; or that, unconsciously (as is often the case with artists), she has managed to capture a
snapshot of reality in a constantly unreal situation.
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This set of pictures is called From the Land of Miracles and Wendy Sue Lamm closes the volume with
the following words: “You can’t stop love”. It’s a great appeal, but it seems to be directed more to our
descendants than to us. As far as the miracles are concerned, the most immediate of these pictures
seem to deal with a certain idea of time. The men and women of Wendy Sue Lamm’s sketches,
portraits and profiles seem to speak above all their past and unfathomable future. Against all evidence
(clashes, funerals, stone-throwing, weapons, death: normal but suspended lives), they don’t belong to
the present, or at best they seem to view it through the lens of what’s already happened or of what
might happen. In short, the strength of Wendy Sue Lamm’s research and insight could be summed up
in another apparently ironic title: “In Search of Wasted Time” (one that keeps being wasted every day).
At this point we could ask ourselves how much these photos describe reality, or have the capacity of
creating a whole new one, or even contain a number of possible codes and captions. Thus, while
looking at them, imagine being immersed in the peace and tranquillity of an art gallery or museum.
 In a Jerusalem bar, described as being “in”, the reflection of an Israeli couple embracing bounces
off a mirror: the tenderness and eroticism of the scene and the location’s mild bleakness are all
infused with an encompassing sense of loneliness.
 In Ramallah, in the West Bank, a Palestinian stone-thrower, hiding behind a wall with a swastika
scrawled all over it, could easily be taken for a young orthodox Jew preparing to slip on the
phylactery for the morning prayer.
 A Benedictine monk standing under a grey sky, Jerusalem in the background: the city looks like a
pulverized version of Florence.
 The profiles and the dark hair of some orthodox Jews in the Mea Sharim neighbourhood,
photographed from above: since they’re self-secluded people, Wendy decided to keep at a
respectful distance and maybe visualize their choice to be watched upon solely by God himself.
 An abandoned tank conveys the idea of a physical and constant contact with war, appearing more
like a permanent monument than a rusty war relic.
 The anguish of a sheep, waiting for its turn in the ritual slaughter, recalls Umberto Saba’s renowned
poem’s “goat with a Semite face”.
These are just a few examples; anyone’s free to choose his/her favourite pictures. But they more or
less some up Wendy Sue Lamm’s favourite subjects: close-ups, profiles, body details, places often
unidentifiable, advertising images. In the end, a collection of artfully chosen symbols, clearly a sign of a
very alert subconscious.
Since all these pictures deal with two opposing factions, one should first look at them and they try to
see them from both perspectives. The Palestinians could use for the Israelis a not-too-well-known
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Il copyright dell'intero contenuto di questo documento è di proprietà di Thesis Associazione Culturale, l'utente è autorizzato a
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expression used by art historian Ernst H. Gombrich to describe the Jewish minority in a non-Jewish
world: “An ideological niche in relation to others.” On the other hand, the Israelis could define the
Palestinians with something along these lines: “An absent people who made themselves increasingly
present”.
In a way we could say that a third observer, the apparently external world, in this case Wendy Sue
Lamm, took a picture of herself amidst them. Maybe the key to a different future for their descendants
lies in this picture’s invisible caption.
Milan, 22 February, 2007
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Il copyright dell'intero contenuto di questo documento è di proprietà di Thesis Associazione Culturale, l'utente è autorizzato a
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