Photographs of conflict are not always accurate. Images are sometimes doctored by journalists or the military in order to convey factual evidence that caters to the biased angle of the person behind the lens. Similar to performance art, images of war are meant to instill an idea or evoke an emotion from the audience. The main difference is that performance art is subjective whereas photojournalism presents itself as objective and factual.

War Art Now, a project by current Calgary Allied Arts Foundation (CAAF) st[art]@art central artist-in-residence Dick Averns’s, is intended to examine how military art programs can re-examine and redefine the “war on terror” through a photo essay and nonfiction writing. Averns was selected to participate in the Canadian Forces Art Program, gaining access to first-hand art-making in areas of conflict. He will be deployed to Jerusalem this summer where he will have the opportunity to observe and work with officials in Operation Jade, Canada’s longest overseas mission.

Averns’s residency at Art Central allows him to interact with the public through open studio hours every Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. His last open studio day will be Thursday, March 19 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and everyone is welcome.

Averns has created a series of photographic diptychs, which incorporate appropriated images from newspapers and other media sources depicting violent representations of war, juxtaposed with appropriated documentation of performance art. “A lot of performance art deals with issues of conflict... or putting your body on the line, which is something that soldiers do, something that politicians do and something that performance artists do,” says Averns.

In the work Dog Police, Averns uses two images to discuss the performance of aggression. The left image, taken from the Internet, depicts a bound and shackled illegal combatant en route to Guantánamo Bay. An American leans over the detainee in a menacing fashion while the prisoner leans away from the soldier. On the right side of the panel, the military image is juxtaposed with a still of a coyote aggressively pulling fabric wrapped around a human figure.

In Joseph Beuys’s 1974 performance, Coyote, he attempted to mend American trauma between whites and Native Americans. For a week, Beuys interacted with a coyote — revered by Native Americans — mimicking his moves while wrapped in a felt blanket. The performance ends with the coyote and Beuys making peace, as they lounge together in a bed of straw. It is unclear if Dog Police is a proposal for making peace during violent times or if it is merely a visual representation of performative aggression.

The other work hanging in Averns’s studio is a diptych that compares a hooded Iraqi detainee behind a barbed wire fence, cradling his son, to a video still from Rebecca Horn’s 1970 performance, Unicorn. The performance depicts a nude woman wearing white bandages that leave her breasts, legs and arms exposed. On her head she carries a 91-centimetre pointed column as she stands in the middle of a dirt road surrounded by pine trees. Averns says he compared the triangular geometric forms in both images as “a pinnacle of achievement, or the highest reaching point.” While this image might be comparable by a slight geometric resemblance, it is problematic and somewhat culturally insensitive to juxtapose a Muslim man with a nude western woman.

Averns’s work often discusses the commodification of space, be it political, social, mental or cultural. His comparisons of politics to performance art are interesting and at times compelling, but his work for this project lacks a certain level of critical reasoning. Issues of globalization and the commandeering of space are not addressed so much as simply displayed through sensationalized images of war.