Allan Sekula

Waiting for Tear Gas (white globe to back)

Allan Sekula’s series of 81 colour slides entitled ”Waiting for Tear Gas (white globe to black)”, (1999-2000) is a documentation covering the protests against the WTO-summit in Seattle in 1999. “Waiting for Tear Gas” can be positioned in relation to both mainstream and alternative representations of the event. As such it performs a classic role as photo-document, but positioned within the field of representations provoked by worldwide media attention, Sekula’s work can be distinguished. It is both a powerful statement in support of the anti-globalisation movement and an actual political artwork. In the carrying out of the work Sekula moved with the flow of protest one day from dawn to night, taking in the waiting and the margins of the event, proceeding according to anti-photojournalist measures: no flash, no telephoto zoom lens, no gas mask, no auto-focus, no press pass and no intention to grab at all cost the defining image of dramatic violence, thereby grasping moments of both civic solemnity, urban anxiety and carnival. “Waiting for Tear Gas” provides not only a picture of the multitude that combines various social and economic roles within society through a new collective experience. It focuses on a more political conception of the multitude by portraying those who have been cast into this role through their opposition to trade, speculation and unproductive wealth. The multitude appears as a self-organising collection of singularities brought together into a collective movement where the human body asserts itself in the city streets, against the abstraction of global capital. Sekula frequently employs a combination of written text and photography in order to resolve his scepticism towards the universal legibility of the individual image in a practical way. He is also a well known writer and critic.

Allan Sekula
Born 1951 in Erie, Pennsylvania (USA)
Lives and works in Los Angeles

Solo exhibitions

Titanic’s Wake, Camera Austria, Graz, Austria and Galerie Traversée, Munich, Germany, 2005

Prayer for the Americans , galerie Michel Rein, Paris, 2004

Secret Formula: Wealth without Workers , Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisboa, Portugal, 2004

Waiting for Tear Gas , Centrüm för Fotografi, Stockholm; Camera Austria, Graz, Autriche, 2002

Dear Bill Gates , Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2002

Group exhibitions

10th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, 2007

Documenta 12, Kassel, 2007

Concept has never meant horse, Generali Foundation, Vienna, 2006

Die Regierung (The Government) (curated by Roger M. Buergel & Ruth Noack), Secession, Vienna, 2005

Critical societies, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, 2005

Situations Construites, Attitudes, Geneva, 2004

Empire State, Whitney Museum, New York, 2002

Trade - Waren, Wege und Werte im Welthandel heute, Fotomuseum Winterthur, 2001

Open city - street photographs since 1950, MOMA, Oxford; Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, 2001

 

Bibliography

War without bodies / Krieg ohne Kˆrper, Allan Sekula, by Allan Sekula, Generali Foundation. Vienna 2003.

Titanic's wake, Allan Sekula, texts by A. Sekula, Le Point du Jour, Cherbourg-Octeville 2003.

Allan Sekula. Performance under working conditions, Sabine Breitwieser, (pub.), texts by A. Sekula, B. H. D Buchloh, S. Breitwieser, D. Karner, Generali Foundation. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2003.

Allan Sekula. Seemannsgarn, texts by A. Sekula, B. H.D Buchloh, Richter Verlag, D¸sseldorf 2002.

Paradigma Fotografie, H. Foster, B. H. D. Buchloh, A. Sekula, R. Krauss, F. Kittler et al... Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002.

Calais vu par Allan Sekula. Deep Six / Passer au bleu, texts by Beausse, Pascal; Sekula, Allan. Musee des beaux-arts et de la dentelle. Calais 2001.

5 days that shook the world, Seattle and beyond, A. Cockbur, J. St. Clair, Verso, London / New York 2000.

Allan Sekula. Dead Letter Office, texts by A. Sekula, B. H. D. Buchloh, F. Gierstberg, L. van der Molen, Nederlands Foto Instituut. Rotterdam 1998.

Allan Sekula. Dismal science. Photo works 1972-1996. texts by A. Sekula et al. University Galleries, Illinois State University. Bloomington 1996.

Fish Story. Allan Sekula, texts by B. H. D. Buchloh, Witte de With. Richter Verlag, Rotterdam/D¸sseldorf 1995.

Allan Sekula, Photography against the grain, A. Sekula, Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax 1984.

Links
www.govettbrewster.com/Publications/Visit+Online/waitingForTearGas.htm
www.courtauld.ac.uk/people/stallabrass_julian/essays/types_prospects_radical_art.pdf
www.borderlandsejournal.adelaide.edu.au/vol4no1_2005/begg_art.htm
www.holy-damn-it.org/kuenstler/as.html
http://foundation.generali.at/index.php?id=78