Colecciones de arte

Campos de Batalla, 1995-1996

DESCRIPTION

The series of photographs Campos de Batalla consists of twenty-one pictures portraying sites of bloody battles in Spain that were highly significant in the annals of history. The historic tour of horror is mitigated by the coldness of the photographs, but we are left wondering how tragic and bloody they would have been had they been taken at the time mentioned in their titles. Due to the temporal distance from what occurred there, Bleda and Rosa participate fully with this project in the realm established by the Bechers in their labours as photographers of industrial archaeology, so basic for the understanding of the dynamics of contemporary German photography. Just as these German masters who portrayed the remains of industrial archaeology where energy and life had been generated and that are currently closed-down and on the verge of destruction, Bleda and Rosa portray places vibrant with historical energy, places where blood, ideals, hopes, triumphs and defeats, life and death, played a cruel game. Places for memory and for oblivion.

Bleda and Rosa deploy their camera as if it were a time machine, landing in these fields, in which all that remains now is the trace of memoriy, empty scenes in which the memory of the action is still vivid. The aftermath, barren and desolate fields razed by battle.

If we concentrate, we can hear the battle raging. Ibn Abi Zar said that in Tolosa "Alphonse's heralds shouted, kill and do not seize; he who brings a prisoner will die along with him. Hence the enemy took no captives that day". Almanzor's might; the defeat and spilt blood at Tolosa, where capturing prisoners was not permitted; the city of Numancia, defeated after months of starvation; Hannibal's siege of Sagunto. So much life and so much death, so much wasted energy.

But now all that remains is the memory of the laments and the clashing of armour. Only the memory of disgrace, of the battle announced in the title converting these anonymous lands into places where suffering was all pervading. This is photography that conveys truths that are put into question by the present. Photography of memory. Bleda and Rosa photograph what was, what has already happened. The absence of the din of battle. The oblivion of what was reminds us of what once happened there. The choice of the bloodiest battles renders this series a tour of the harshest moments of history. Neither the history nor the photography are the truth, yet they approach the truth.

Bleda and Rosa go to the battle ground. A long time has passed since there were fights on these fields. These are photographs addressing space and memory. Photographs that portray the past through the memory elicited by the titles. The titles enable us to bestow new meaning on these often barren landscapes. What happened in Rocesvalles in 718? King Charlemagne's rearguard was pummelled by the Navarrans. In Sagunto, the siege of Hannibal and his elephants; in Navas de Tolosa, the heir to the throne of Castille was protected by a soldier who, "While death was besieging him from all directions, was so brave he not only protected the child with a shield, but repelled the attacks raining down all around him. Nevertheless, when his foot was severed in one blow, he could stand no longer and fell upon the child to die before him", according to the chronicles of Don Ucumbía who had sought shelter behind Count García Ordoñez Rodrigo Jiménez de la Roda's shield. Bloody deeds on empty and now forgotten fields. These are post-cards of memories of disgraces, places of losses and questionable winnings. territories that now always elicit misfortune but that in their time signified glory for the victor. The changing moment changes the meaning of an immutable space that is always one and the same. Time has passed; all this happened ages ago, but in most cases the barren lands indicate to us that there has been no transformation on the earth. Time slowly mutes the land, the rate of change occurs in history, in man and in his memory. C. D.