Artist book
Not on view
War Primer 2 is an artist’s book that inhabits the pages of the 1998 first English–language edition of Bertolt Brecht’s Kriegsfibel (War Primer), originally published in German in 1955. Brecht matched World War II newspaper clippings with four–line poems that he called photo–epigrams, with the intent of demystifying the mass–media images. Brecht was skeptical of the role photojournalism played in the political economy of capitalism, and he referred to press pictures as hieroglyphics in need of decoding. In their version, Broomberg and Chanarin silkscreened text directly onto Brecht’s book and superimposed low–resolution screenshots, culled from Google image searches, that refer to the ongoing “War on Terror.” Through this layering of photographic history the artists construct a critique of images of contemporary conflict.
New Photography 2013, September 14, 2013–January 6, 2014.
Explore more
Photobook
An artist’s book in which the art is photo-based. Photographers have been collecting their pictures in books since photography was invented.
Learn more →
From MoMA Design Store
Installation views
We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.
Licensing
Artwork or archival images
If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).
Audio and film clips
MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.
Text from a publication or the archives
If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.