Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava
Gilles Peress, Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, with Annals of the North. Steidl Photo
Henri Cartier-Bresson in the newly liberated Nazi Concentration Camps…
Robert Capa in Paris during its Liberation…
Robert Franks- London & Wales…
Robert Franks- The Americans…
Larry Burrows- Vietnam…
Gilles Peress- Telex Iran…
These were some of the images and PhotoBooks that flashed through my mind while looking through a copy of the newly released two-volume Whatever You Say, Say Nothing by Gilles Peress published by Steidl. I don’t think this will be the last time it’s spoken about with those monuments of Photography. Even though the Photographs in it were taken 50 years ago next year, I believe Whatever You Say, Say Nothing will be included when the list of THE Books of this Decade is finalized.
Steidl Photo.
It comes in a strong tote bag (it better be- the set weighs almost 30 pounds!). The two PhotoBooks contain 1,960 14 3/4 by 10 inch pages with 1,295 images, including some amazing wide-angle shots that will look like panoramas to iPhone users. These are often shown on a 2 page spread that’s almost 30 inches wide! The first volume has “Whatever You Say” in silver letters on the spine, Volume II has “Say Nothing” on it. Each set is accompanied by the “text and image almanac,” The Annals of the North, itself 900 pages.
Steidl Photo.
Billed as “A Documentary Fiction” on the title page, the word “Fiction” allows me to bring it into the world of “Art,” though everything it shows us was actually witnessed by the Photographer in Northern Ireland. In 1972, at age 26, he witnessed the “Bloody Sunday Massacre,” then returned to continue shooting there over the next decade. Whatever You Say, Say Nothing marks the first time most of this work has been seen.
Steidl Photo.
Per Steidl-
“Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, a work of “documentary fiction,” organizes a decade of photographs across 22 fictional “days” to articulate the helicoidal structure of history during a conflict that seemed like it would never end—where each day became a repetition of every other day like that day: days of violence, of marching, of riots, of unemployment, of mourning, and also of “craic” where you try to forget your condition.
Held back for 30 years and now eagerly anticipated, this ambitious publication takes the language of documentary photography to its extremes, then challenges the reader to stop and resolve the puzzle of meaning for him or herself.”
Steidl Photo.
It’s fitting I’m seeing this on the heels of having seen and written about Francisco Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War) at The Met, which left me pondering so-called “documentary” Photography and Goya’s possible influence on Artists & Photographers.
Steidl Photo.
Culling down a decade’s worth of work to 1,295 images must have been incredibly difficult, but there’s no evidence of that to be seen in the books where there are no “weak” images and those chosen are brilliantly sequenced in service to the “22 Day” concept. I particularly admire the image layout- not full bleed but with the slimmest of margin, maximizing the available real estate. It was too hard for me to think of a fictional narrative to accompany the images as they went by. I was too gripped by what’s depicted in the Photos themselves. Gilles Peress’s remarkable images have lost not one bit of their power in the intervening 3 decades since he took them. They are a part of history that has much to teach us now, and no doubt will in the future. But those are just two of the innumerable levels of this monumental work.
*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” by U-2 from War, 1980. After its release, I saw them at The Ritz, NYC, on their first US tour.
My thanks to Monika Condrea.
BookMarks-
Gilles Peress’ Whatever You Say, Say Nothing is about to be released in the US.
For a compelling look at events in Northern Ireland in 1981 check out the excellent Yan Morvan’s Bobby Sands, Belfast Mai 1981 (French Edition) from Andrew Frerer Editions. (Note- My copy is French & English. There is only one edition as far as I know.) Mr Morvan was also about 26 or 27 when he shot in Northern Ireland.
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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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