Afghanistan: Perils of Freedom
Afghanistan: Perils of Freedom
Date
2008
Media
Offset print
Format
Artist Book
Dimensions
10 × 8 in
Pages
48
Publisher
The New York Public Library
Collection
Collection Development, Limited Edition Artists Books$ 25.00
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Photo-journalist Stephen Dupont has been visiting Afghanistan since 1993, documenting the civil war, the rise of the Taliban, and the United States’ war on terror. This beautifully printed catalog was published in conjunction with his first solo exhibition in the United States at the New York Public Library. Dupont has won dozens of international photo awards and published many books of his work.
“Afghanistan, or The Perils of Freedom, surveys photographs taken by Stephen Dupont between 1993 and 2008, a period of almost constant conflict as forces both inside and outside the Afghan republic fought for control. Though Dupont witnessed these power struggles up close, the most interesting images focus on the collateral damage to ordinary citizens. The best pictures here are twenty black-and-white Polaroid portraits [from the Axe Me Biggie portfolio] of people posed before a portable cloth backdrop on the streets of Kabul on May 13, 2006. The tension between spontaneity and staging gives Dupont’s subjects, a man with a fistful of cash, a girl with cartons of eggs, a B-boy wannabe in a bucket hat, a heightened presence. And the observers crowding around, peering into the camera, turn each photograph into an event.”
— Vince Aletti, review of Stephen Dupont’s 2008/09 solo exhibition at the New York Public Library from The New Yorker, January 5th, 2009
Published by the New York Public Library.
Offset printed in duotone. Paperback with french flaps. 8″ x 10.” 48 pages. 2008.