Embedded artist: with a suite of watercolor and ink drawings and a series of on-line dispatches, New York painter Steve Mumford chronicles military and civilian life in U.S.-occupied Iraq - Reportage
Art in America, Feb, 2004 by Marcia E. Vetrocq
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By a remarkable scheduling coincidence, an exhibition of 28 gouache, ink and collage drawings from Nancy Spero's 1966-70 "War Series," a white-hot indictment of death-dealing male belligerence, opened at Galerie Lelong on the same October evening as Mumford's show. Eight blocks away, attending the reception at Postmasters in full mill taint dress was Lt. Col. (now retired) Scott Ratter. In early April, Rutter led soldiers from the 2-7 Infantry in taking the Saddam Hussein Airport; two weeks after that, he was driving around downtown Baghdad with Mumford in his entourage. The officer is no mouthpiece for administration policies; indeed, Rutter has publicly criticized the inadequacy of post-conflict planning. But his presence could be taken as one knowledgeable man's confirmation of the accuracy with which Mumford relayed the facts on the ground in Iraq. Of course, accuracy Ls rarely what we turn to art for in the long run. And while it's always prudent for a critic to refrain from divination, in the case of Mumford's Iraq drawings, dealing in predictions about the work's enduring significance seems more hazardous than usual.
(1.) This and additional comments were obtained from Steve Mumford in an interview with the author on Nov. 18, 2003.
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