PHOTO EXHIBIT COMMEMORATING END OF WORLD WAR II OPENS AT HEADQUARTERS ON 1 FEBRUARY

Note to Correspondents

PHOTO EXHIBIT COMMEMORATING END OF WORLD WAR II OPENS

AT HEADQUARTERS ON 1 FEBRUARY

To commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the end of World War II, a two-part photographic exhibition entitled “This Hallowed Ground:  The Beaches of Normandy” by David Burnett, and “Afterwar:  Veterans from a World in Conflict” by Lori Grinker is on display in the General Assembly Visitors’ Lobby and will remain on view through 28 February.

A formal exhibit opening will take place on Tuesday, 1 February at 6 p.m. in the main gallery of the Visitors’ Lobby followed by a reception.  Opening remarks will be made by Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information; Robert Pledge, President of Contact Press Images; Lori Grinker and David Burnett.

Marking the anniversary of V-E Day (8 May 1945) and the end of the war in the Pacific (2 September 1945), these two exhibits consider not the performance of war, but war after the fighting has ended.  Each body of work evokes war in its heroic guise and in its mundane day-to-day tragedy.  Each is a meditation, illuminating the legacy and cost of conflict -- one with landscapes that recall the absent faces, the other with faces that suggest the forgotten battlefields.

David Burnett’s “This Hallowed Ground:  The Beaches of Normandy” represents selections from over 30 years of Burnett’s work on the D-Day landing sites, while on assignment for Time magazine between 1974 and 2004.  While void of people, Burnett’s images express the intense human presence of those who participated in the assault, those who died, and those who made it through the tides, the fog, and bullets.

Lori Grinker's “Afterwar:  Veterans from a World in Conflict” is a 15-year project documenting the physical and psychological wounds of frontline war veterans since World War I.  This timely exhibition, comprised of 50 mostly medium-sized colour prints and quotes from the vets, seeks to illuminate the culture of war as measured in its personal toll, and is especially relevant amidst the ongoing conflicts around the world.

The exhibition is produced by Contact Press Images, the international photographic agency, and curated by Robert Pledge, in cooperation with the United Nations Department of Public Information.  It is made possible with the support of The Herbert Bearman Foundation, Beth Schiffer Photo Labs, and The United Nations Foundation.

For more information on the exhibition, call Jan Arnesen at (212) 963-8531 or Liza Wichmann at (212) 963-0089, or visit the web site at www.un.org/events/UNART.  For inquiries on the photographs, send an e-mail to mail@contactpressimages.com, or call (212) 695-7750.

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