Infidel – Tim Hetherington

Commisioned by

Foam

In collaboration with
Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

Date
19 July – 7 September 2013

Infidel is the first solo exhibition of Tim Hetherington (1970-2011) in the Netherlands. Foam presents a mixture of his photographs and videos, drawn from his series Sleeping Soldiers, Infidel and Diary. In his work Hetherington focused on the experience of war from the perspective of the individual. Through his photographs, writing and films, Hetherington provides us with new ways to look at and think about human suffering as a result of war, both from the perspective of ordinary soldiers as well as the civilians caught up in the conflict.

Infidel
 consists of large-scale images of the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, taken to set the scene, as well as intimate portraits of the American troops stationed there. The photographs were taken over a period of one year in 2007-2008, during which Hetherington managed to get incredibly close to the soldiers. Describing the photographs in Infidel, Hetherington said: “It’s all about the men. I didn’t want to pretend this was […] about the war in Afghanistan. It was a conscious decision. [It] comments on the experience of the soldier. It’s brotherhood. The flow of pictures is to introduce you to the Korengal Valley first and then to see the men in an intimate way…To get to know them and how they lived. Then you see them in combat in the traditional combat style. Finally, you see them as young men, sleeping.”

Alongside the prints of Infidel, Foam will show Hetherington’s film Sleeping Soldiers(2009). In this film we are confronted with intimate and tender portraits of soldiers asleep whilst stationed in a combat zone. It sheds light onto another and previously unseen part of modern warfare. The film drives home how incredibly vulnerable and young these soldiers are. It proves exactly how close the photographer managed to get to the soldiers of 173rd Airborne division. The exhibition also explores Hetherington’s private thoughts and feelings about his work in Diary, a short film that collages original footage taken by Hetherington throughout his career. The photographer described Diary, which he directed in 2010, as “a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.”