Peter van Agtmael

2nd Tour, Hope I Don’t Die

Exhibition Opening and Artist Slideshow

Tuesday October 13
7:30 pm

 

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER:

Peter was born in Washington DC. He studied history at Yale, graduating with honors in 2003. After graduation, he received a Charles P. Howland grant to travel to China to document the social and environmental consequences of the Three Gorges Dam. In 2005, he covered the Asian Tsunami, then relocated to Johannesburg, South Africa and photographed the AIDS epidemic by following the story of Holly Moyo, an HIV-positive Zimbabwean refugee. On assignment, he traveled throughout Africa. In 2006, he traveled to Iraq twice, spending nearly half the year on embeds. In 2007 and 2008, he spent several months embedding in the remote American outposts of Eastern Afghanistan and working un-embedded in the north and Kabul. When not in Iraq and Afghanistan, van Agtmael photographed the war at home, following the recovery of wounded soldiers and the families of the fallen.

In 2008 he helped organize the book and exhibition Battlespace, a retrospective of largely unseen work of 22 photographers covering Iraq and Afghanistan.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have lost America's attention, and some would say, never really had it. Despite all the immediacy of new media, America's view of these wars has largely been sanitized, incomplete and remote. Photographer Peter van Agtmael aims to change our perceptions with his compelling new book, 2nd Tour Hope I Don't Die.

From 2006 through 2008, Peter van Agtmael was an embedded photographer who followed the sweep of the conflicts between Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States. He captured the range of the American experience, from chaotic night raids in Iraqi cities to long patrols through isolated valleys in the mountains of Afghanistan. The images are unsparing yet nuanced, revealing tense medical evacuations and graphic casualties of suicide bombings as well as moving portraits of young soldiers and their families recuperating, mourning, and suffering. In the end a delicate humanity emerges amid the chaos and brutality of combat.
 
The book distills - in van Agtmael's photographs and words - the complexity of that experience from the point of view of a young man seeing many others of his generation facing tough choices, grave responsibilities and unpredictable fates. By turns gritty, haunting, and deeply moving, the book is a cogent reminder of the stark and enduring realities of war.
 
Soldiers who sometimes initially voiced suspicion ultimately urged van Agtmael to show what was going on in their world because they recognized that, without pictures, it would be as if their experiences never happened.

 

 

The photography series is curated by Song Chong



Previous exhibitions at The Half King
THE PEOPLE by HUNTER BARNES
IN AMERICA by ANTONIN KRATOCHVIL
CONTINENTAL BOUNCE by MAGDA BIERNAT
PORTRAIT GUATEMALA by NINA WEINBERG DORAN
THE DANCING GIRLS by LISA CARPENTER
THE BARACK OBAMA CAMPAIGN by SCOUT TUFANKJIAN
THE PEOPLE OF PROTEST by PAUL PARK
JUAREZ, CITY OF MISSING WOMEN by TIMOTHY FADEK
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC by SPENCER PLATT
EYEBLINK by JAMES WENDELL
CONFESSIONS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER by JULIA CALFEE
HARVEST by JEFFREY LAMONT BROWN
WAR IN LEBANON by PAOLO PELLEGRIN
IN THE SHADOW OF POWER by KIKE ARNAL
CYCLE OF VIOLENCE by SHAUL SCHWARZ
THE OUTCASTS OF SLOVAKIA by JULIE DENESHA
AFGHANISTAN EMBEDDED by TEUN VOETEN
NEW ORLEANS: WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE by MARIO TAMA
VANISHING GIANTS by JENNIFER HILE
ONE IN A BILLION by DAVID BUTOW
EDGE OF PERFECTION by DAVID BURNETT
MAKASUTU
by JASON FLORIO
PYONGYANG DESIGN by TEUN VOETEN
SUDAN by BEN LOWY
HOMELAND by MICHAEL WILLIAMSON & DALE MAHARIDGE
WATER CULTURE by BRENT STIRTON
AÏNA PHOTOJOURNALISM INSTITUTE OF AFGHANISTAN
CAMBODIA'S LOST BOYZ by TERU KUWAYAMA
WAR ZONES by MIKE KAMBER
LIBERIA BY CHRIS HONDROS
BERLIN BY ESTHER LEVINE
LONGING BY GREG DWYER
CORN BY GREGORY THORP
CAKE & HOTDOGS and WILD WEEKEND WOMEN BY ANDREANNA LYNN SEYMORE
ATHLETES BY SCOTT McDERMOTT
HAVANA PASSAGE BY TARA SGROI
ABOVE AND BELOW THE PAVEMENT BY SERGE J-F LEVY
 

For further information on these exhibits, please go here.

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