Concrete News

Concrete News No 1, 12 kg

Colin Powell speaks at UN, February 5, 2003

TV-Still on Concrete, 2010, 30 x 30 x 5 cm

Photos: Henning Bothe

“Everyone’s perception – including that of intellectuals and philosophers – becomes a strange mixture of hyper-emotion, of desensitisation resulting from trivialization and repetition, and of indifference caused by incessant claims of our attention.“
Yves Michaud

On February 5, 2003, the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the United Nations Security Council, and in a passionate appeal, cited alleged secret information revealing the existence of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. With this revelation, he supplied the justification for a war of aggression led by the USA and its allies against the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Nothing about these images – broadcast by the billion across the globe as depicting the incontrovertible truth and burned into our collective visual memories – were "real". Nevertheless, they had devastating consequences, such as war and displacement.

TV-stills of these images have been exposed onto heavy concrete plates, "burned" into them, in order to illustrate the greatest possible contrast between the ephemeral character of a fleeting televised image and the immense weight of its content.