Shipwreck and workers

Shipwreck and Workers for Documenta 12 will include photographs of a midwife, a mother with her newborn child, gravediggers and goldsmiths. The work will be installed outdoors on the Palace Wilhelmshoehe, flanking a baroque water cascade that flows down from an early eighteenth century statue of Hercules, guardian hero of the city. The first version of this series was exhibited in 2005 as a set of large outdoor photographs in Vienna at the Chamber of Labor, and then as an expanded version of the work in Belgium at the STUK Kunstcentrum, also in 2005. Christopher Grimes Gallery will exhibit photographs presented in Documenta 12 as well as a few works from earlier versions of the series. The South Gallery will feature a new video work by Sekula entitled A Short Film for Laos. In 2006, Sekula felt compelled as an American citizen to visit Laos and document the ways aerial bombardment by the United States during the Vietnam War had altered the country. Following merchants, blacksmiths and bricklayers, Sekula shows that in Laos, the guiding spirit of the forge is a scavenger, picking up after the demons of war.