Claire Beckett: Simulating Iraq

The artist's first solo museum exhibition in the Matrix series connects America's military past and present.

Boston-based artist Claire Beckett will be the focus of a new exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum, featuring work depicting American military training sites for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Beckett's first solo museum exhibition, Claire Beckett/MATRIX 163 will feature "Simulating Iraq" (2007–2009), a series of large-scale photographs taken at fabricated Middle Eastern-like settlements created within U.S. military training centers for role-playing exercises. As the year 2011 marks the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, Beckett's photographs provide timely subject matter, raising issues of identity and perceptions of cultural difference.

Claire Beckett's "Simulating Iraq" is intended to provide a counterpart to the exhibition Colts & Quilts: The Civil War Remembered, which is focused on the impact of the Civil War on American society. The juxtaposition of these exhibitions will bring contemporary relevance to the historical exhibition and enable visitors to think critically about the cultural impact of our present wars in the Middle East.

Top: Above Medina Jabal Town, National Training Center,
Fort Irwin, CA, 2009.
30 x 40 in.,
Courtesy Dave Greenblatt, Boston; above:
Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Stevens playing the
role of a Taliban fighter, Marine Corps Mountain
Warfare Training Center, CA, 2009,
40 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist and Carroll
and Sons, Boston — Top: Above Medina Jabal Town, National Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA, 2009. 30 x 40 in., Courtesy Dave Greenblatt, Boston; above: Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Stevens playing the role of a Taliban fighter, Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, CA, 2009, 40 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist and Carroll and Sons, Boston

"Beckett's series captures a powerful sense of humanity in her American subjects when she could easily have addressed the military theme with criticism and irony," said Patricia Hickson, the museum's Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art. "The viewer feels her personal connection with her subjects, which brings an interesting psychological layer to the images and narrative. This connection is mirrored in Colts & Quilts, which includes highly personal commemorative objects that have a similar effect on visitors." "Simulating Iraq" will feature 18 large scale (32 x 40 in) color portraits, interiors, and landscapes taken over three years at U.S. military training centers in California, where simulated Iraqi and Afghan settlements were built and utilized by soldiers for role-playing war games in preparation for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. In these simulated towns, both military personnel and civilians play various "parts" from Iraqi villagers and medical staff to enemy combatants, dressed in approximations of traditional Middle-Eastern clothing, including headdresses, tunics, and robes. Although the military activities and sites are intended to familiarize troops with a foreign culture and unknown terrain, Beckett's photographs present the viewer with a bizarre, alternate reality. In military training, live role-playing games serve a critical purpose, but they also pervade popular and contemporary culture. Civil War reenactments, Dungeons & Dragons, and avatars of the virtual game world all relate to the blurred lines between reality and fantasy. Beckett's photographs initially appear to be straightforward, documentary images. However, she works with a 4-x-5 view camera, which requires a lengthy setup, so she collaborates with her subjects to stage the portraits. In addition, the images are complicated by the "falseness" of the depictions, with blue-eyed, white-skinned subjects in head wraps and the clumsy plywood constructions of mosques.

Marine Lance Corporal Nicole Camala Veen playing
the role of an Iraqi nurse, Wadi Al-Sahara, Marine
Corps Air Ground Combat Center, CA, 2008,
40 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist & Carroll
and Sons, Boston — Marine Lance Corporal Nicole Camala Veen playing the role of an Iraqi nurse, Wadi Al-Sahara, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, CA, 2008, 40 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist & Carroll and Sons, Boston

About MATRIX
The Wadsworth was the first to embrace the idea of contemporary art in an encyclopedic museum through its MATRIX program, which began in 1975 as a series of single-artist exhibitions that have showcased more than 150 artists, providing many with their first solo museum exhibition in the United States—including Adrian Piper, Louise Lawler, Janine Antoni, and Dawoud Bey. Many MATRIX artists, such as Sol LeWitt, Willem de Kooning, Christo, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman and Gerhard Richter, are now considered seminal figures in contemporary art. "The new MATRIX series brings an exciting roster of emerging artists to the Wadsworth, and allows us to present work that is distinctive and new, yet still strongly influenced by the history of art," said Susan Talbott, Director of the Wadsworth Atheneum. "As the series progresses I am excited to see how each artist builds on the tradition of past MATRIX artists who have been inspired by the Wadsworth's long history of engaging with contemporary art, dating back to the museum's inception in the 1840s."

Army Specialist Gary McCorkle playing the role of
“Jibril Ihsan Hamal,” a key member of the leading
terrorist group in town, with an IED, Medina Wasl
Village, National Training Center, Fort Irwin,
CA, 2009, 40 x 30 in.
Courtesy of the artist & Carroll
and Sons, Boston — Army Specialist Gary McCorkle playing the role of “Jibril Ihsan Hamal,” a key member of the leading terrorist group in town, with an IED, Medina Wasl Village, National Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA, 2009, 40 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist & Carroll and Sons, Boston

Simulating Iraq/Matrix 163
Until March 4 2012
The Wadsworth Atheneum
600 Main Street
Hartford, Connecticut

Butcher Shop, Medina Wasl Village, National
Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA, 2009,
30 x 40 in. Courtesy of the artist & Carroll
and Sons, Boston — Butcher Shop, Medina Wasl Village, National Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA, 2009, 30 x 40 in. Courtesy of the artist & Carroll and Sons, Boston

Claire Beckett: Simulating Iraq

The artist's first solo museum exhibition in the Matrix series connects America's military past and present.

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