Hiroshima Ground Zero 1945 Exhibition. panedek000 on Jul 9, 2011 NEW YORK, NY.- Once-classified images of atomic destruction at Hiroshima are displayed in a new exhibition "Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945…More
Hiroshima Ground Zero 1945 Exhibition.
panedek000 on Jul 9, 2011 NEW YORK, NY.- Once-classified images of atomic destruction at Hiroshima are displayed in a new exhibition "Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945" drawn from ICP’s permanent collection. The Hiroshima archive includes more than 700 images of absence and annihilation, which formed the basis for civil defense architecture in the United States. These images had been mislaid for over forty years before being acquired by ICP in 2006. On view from May 20 through August 28, 2011.
This exhibition includes approximately 60 contact prints and photographs as well as the secret 1947 United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) report, The Effects of the Strategic Bombing on Hiroshima, Japan. It is accompanied by a catalogue published by ICP/Steidl, with essays by John W. Dower, Adam Harrison Levy, David Monteyne, Philomena Mariani, and Erin Barnett.
After the nuclear attacks in August 1945, President Truman dispatched members of the USSBS to Japan to survey the military, economic, and civilian damage. The Survey’s Physical Damage Division photographed, analyzed, and evaluated the atomic bomb’s impact on the structures surrounding the Hiroshima blast site, designated “Ground Zero.” The findings of the USSBS provided essential information to American architects and civil engineers as they debated the merits of bomb shelters, suburbanization, and revised construction techniques.
The photographs in this exhibition were in the possession of Robert L. Corsbie, an executive officer of the Physical Damage Division who later worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. An architectural engineer and expert on the effects of the atomic bomb, he used what he learned from the structural analyses and these images to promote civil defense architecture in the U.S. The photographs went through a series of unintended moves after Corsbie, his wife and son died in a house fire in 1967.
The U.S., at war with Japan, detonated the world’s first weaponized atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a vast port city of over 350,000 inhabitants, on August 6, 1945. The blast obliterated about 70 percent of the city and caused the deaths of more than 140,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in another 80,000 fatalities. Within a week, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, effectively ending World War II.
“Once part of a classified cache of government photographs, this archive of haunting images documents the devastating power of the atomic bomb,” said ICP Assistant Curator of Collections Erin Barnett, who organized the exhibition.
panedek000 on Jul 9, 2011 NEW YORK, NY.- Once-classified images of atomic destruction at Hiroshima are displayed in a new exhibition "Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945" drawn from ICP’s permanent collection. The Hiroshima archive includes more than 700 images of absence and annihilation, which formed the basis for civil defense architecture in the United States. These images had been mislaid for over forty years before being acquired by ICP in 2006. On view from May 20 through August 28, 2011.
This exhibition includes approximately 60 contact prints and photographs as well as the secret 1947 United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) report, The Effects of the Strategic Bombing on Hiroshima, Japan. It is accompanied by a catalogue published by ICP/Steidl, with essays by John W. Dower, Adam Harrison Levy, David Monteyne, Philomena Mariani, and Erin Barnett.
After the nuclear attacks in August 1945, President Truman dispatched members of the USSBS to Japan to survey the military, economic, and civilian damage. The Survey’s Physical Damage Division photographed, analyzed, and evaluated the atomic bomb’s impact on the structures surrounding the Hiroshima blast site, designated “Ground Zero.” The findings of the USSBS provided essential information to American architects and civil engineers as they debated the merits of bomb shelters, suburbanization, and revised construction techniques.
The photographs in this exhibition were in the possession of Robert L. Corsbie, an executive officer of the Physical Damage Division who later worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. An architectural engineer and expert on the effects of the atomic bomb, he used what he learned from the structural analyses and these images to promote civil defense architecture in the U.S. The photographs went through a series of unintended moves after Corsbie, his wife and son died in a house fire in 1967.
The U.S., at war with Japan, detonated the world’s first weaponized atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a vast port city of over 350,000 inhabitants, on August 6, 1945. The blast obliterated about 70 percent of the city and caused the deaths of more than 140,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in another 80,000 fatalities. Within a week, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, effectively ending World War II.
“Once part of a classified cache of government photographs, this archive of haunting images documents the devastating power of the atomic bomb,” said ICP Assistant Curator of Collections Erin Barnett, who organized the exhibition.
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Verbrechen oder nötige Maßnahme?
Der Abwurf der Atombomben über den japanischen Städten Hiroshima und Nagasaki vor 70 Jahren sorgt nach wie vor für Kontroversen: Beendeten die beiden Bomben, die Hunderttausende Menschenleben forderten, den Krieg und zwangen Japan zur Aufgabe? Oder hatte die Kriegserklärung der Sowjetunion an Japan auf die bedingungslose Kapitulation des Landes mehr Einfluss? Klar …More
Verbrechen oder nötige Maßnahme?
Der Abwurf der Atombomben über den japanischen Städten Hiroshima und Nagasaki vor 70 Jahren sorgt nach wie vor für Kontroversen: Beendeten die beiden Bomben, die Hunderttausende Menschenleben forderten, den Krieg und zwangen Japan zur Aufgabe? Oder hatte die Kriegserklärung der Sowjetunion an Japan auf die bedingungslose Kapitulation des Landes mehr Einfluss? Klar ist: Durch die verheerenden Folgen der beiden Luftangriffe wurde Japan in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung mit einem Schlag vom Kriegstreiber zum Opfer. Und die USA wollten damit auch gegenüber jemand ganz anderem ein Zeichen setzen.
Lesen Sie mehr …
Der Abwurf der Atombomben über den japanischen Städten Hiroshima und Nagasaki vor 70 Jahren sorgt nach wie vor für Kontroversen: Beendeten die beiden Bomben, die Hunderttausende Menschenleben forderten, den Krieg und zwangen Japan zur Aufgabe? Oder hatte die Kriegserklärung der Sowjetunion an Japan auf die bedingungslose Kapitulation des Landes mehr Einfluss? Klar ist: Durch die verheerenden Folgen der beiden Luftangriffe wurde Japan in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung mit einem Schlag vom Kriegstreiber zum Opfer. Und die USA wollten damit auch gegenüber jemand ganz anderem ein Zeichen setzen.
Lesen Sie mehr …
An exhibition of images of the aftermath of Hiroshima hidden for decades
www.osservatoreromano.va/portal/dt
Having decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the United States government, on the orders of President Harry Truman, limited the circulation of pictures of the city. It was too risky “to disturb public tranquility.” They feared the reaction of the Japanese, of their …More
An exhibition of images of the aftermath of Hiroshima hidden for decades
www.osservatoreromano.va/portal/dt
Having decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the United States government, on the orders of President Harry Truman, limited the circulation of pictures of the city. It was too risky “to disturb public tranquility.” They feared the reaction of the Japanese, of their own Americans and people from every place on the planet to the effects of the first atomic bomb used in a conventional conflict, which caused the instantaneous death of 140,000 people and the destruction of 70% of the infrastructure. Not to mention the consequences of that unknown “pestilence” which would continue to claim victims in the days and months following and go on silently for years to come.
But it could not remain a secret forever. In fact, images of the Japanese city annihilated by the atomic bomb came to light twenty-five years later. But no one saw them. Those photos risked being lost forever; in the last few decades there had been no trace of them. Suddenly, however, after casually coming across them, the photos found their way to the collection of the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York and will be exhibited until August 28, with the evocative title: “Hiroshima – Ground Zero, 1945.”
The story of the images that no one was supposed to see is like a novel. Two months after the explosion, the US administration sent some members of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey’s Physical Damage Division to Hiroshima to analyze the effects. The final report is contained in three volumes of 800 pictures.
Once the secret was out, the photos ended up in a garage of one of the engineers involved in the project – rather than in an archive. The house caught fire and many of the pictures were destroyed, except for a small part which was thrown away, perhaps unintentionally. Nothing more was known of them until one day in 2000, when Don Levy, the owner of a diner in Watertown, Massachusetts, discovered them by chance in his neighbor’s trash pile.
Their acquisition and exposition by the ICP today offers an opportunity to reflect once again on the limits and consequences of the use of atomic energy in war, as well as the United States and other powers’ nuclear policy from the end of World War II through to today.
It is obvious that those who carry the camera do not have principally any artistic or historical intentions, but only the detached attention which is necessary for technical documentation. But today, in the eyes of those who see the snapshots of Hiroshima, they appear for what they truly are: testimony of an immense tragedy; images of a city brought to dust in a few minutes, transformed into a striking desert; shots of a chilling absence of life. Of life cancelled forever in an unexpected and unnatural flash which enflamed a sky that had seemed serene.
July 22, 2011 Gaetano Vallini
www.osservatoreromano.va/portal/dt
Having decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the United States government, on the orders of President Harry Truman, limited the circulation of pictures of the city. It was too risky “to disturb public tranquility.” They feared the reaction of the Japanese, of their own Americans and people from every place on the planet to the effects of the first atomic bomb used in a conventional conflict, which caused the instantaneous death of 140,000 people and the destruction of 70% of the infrastructure. Not to mention the consequences of that unknown “pestilence” which would continue to claim victims in the days and months following and go on silently for years to come.
But it could not remain a secret forever. In fact, images of the Japanese city annihilated by the atomic bomb came to light twenty-five years later. But no one saw them. Those photos risked being lost forever; in the last few decades there had been no trace of them. Suddenly, however, after casually coming across them, the photos found their way to the collection of the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York and will be exhibited until August 28, with the evocative title: “Hiroshima – Ground Zero, 1945.”
The story of the images that no one was supposed to see is like a novel. Two months after the explosion, the US administration sent some members of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey’s Physical Damage Division to Hiroshima to analyze the effects. The final report is contained in three volumes of 800 pictures.
Once the secret was out, the photos ended up in a garage of one of the engineers involved in the project – rather than in an archive. The house caught fire and many of the pictures were destroyed, except for a small part which was thrown away, perhaps unintentionally. Nothing more was known of them until one day in 2000, when Don Levy, the owner of a diner in Watertown, Massachusetts, discovered them by chance in his neighbor’s trash pile.
Their acquisition and exposition by the ICP today offers an opportunity to reflect once again on the limits and consequences of the use of atomic energy in war, as well as the United States and other powers’ nuclear policy from the end of World War II through to today.
It is obvious that those who carry the camera do not have principally any artistic or historical intentions, but only the detached attention which is necessary for technical documentation. But today, in the eyes of those who see the snapshots of Hiroshima, they appear for what they truly are: testimony of an immense tragedy; images of a city brought to dust in a few minutes, transformed into a striking desert; shots of a chilling absence of life. Of life cancelled forever in an unexpected and unnatural flash which enflamed a sky that had seemed serene.
July 22, 2011 Gaetano Vallini
Once-classified images of atomic destruction at Hiroshima are displayed in a new exhibition "Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945" drawn from ICP’s permanent collection. The Hiroshima archive includes more than 700 images of absence and annihilation, which formed the basis for civil defense architecture in the United States. These images had been mislaid for over forty years before being acquired by ICP …More
Once-classified images of atomic destruction at Hiroshima are displayed in a new exhibition "Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945" drawn from ICP’s permanent collection. The Hiroshima archive includes more than 700 images of absence and annihilation, which formed the basis for civil defense architecture in the United States. These images had been mislaid for over forty years before being acquired by ICP in 2006. On view from May 20 through August 28, 2011.
This exhibition includes approximately 60 contact prints and photographs as well as the secret 1947 United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) report, The Effects of the Strategic Bombing on Hiroshima, Japan. It is accompanied by a catalogue published by ICP/Steidl, with essays by John W. Dower, Adam Harrison Levy, David Monteyne, Philomena Mariani, and Erin Barnett.
After the nuclear attacks in August 1945, President Truman dispatched members of the USSBS to Japan to survey the military, economic, and civilian damage. The Survey’s Physical Damage Division photographed, analyzed, and evaluated the atomic bomb’s impact on the structures surrounding the Hiroshima blast site, designated “Ground Zero.” The findings of the USSBS provided essential information to American architects and civil engineers as they debated the merits of bomb shelters, suburbanization, and revised construction techniques.
The photographs in this exhibition were in the possession of Robert L. Corsbie, an executive officer of the Physical Damage Division who later worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. An architectural engineer and expert on the effects of the atomic bomb, he used what he learned from the structural analyses and these images to promote civil defense architecture in the U.S. The photographs went through a series of unintended moves after Corsbie, his wife and son died in a house fire in 1967.
The U.S., at war with Japan, detonated the world’s first weaponized atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a vast port city of over 350,000 inhabitants, on August 6, 1945. The blast obliterated about 70 percent of the city and caused the deaths of more than 140,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in another 80,000 fatalities. Within a week, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, effectively ending World War II.
“Once part of a classified cache of government photographs, this archive of haunting images documents the devastating power of the atomic bomb,” said ICP Assistant Curator of Collections Erin Barnett, who organized the exhibition.
This exhibition includes approximately 60 contact prints and photographs as well as the secret 1947 United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) report, The Effects of the Strategic Bombing on Hiroshima, Japan. It is accompanied by a catalogue published by ICP/Steidl, with essays by John W. Dower, Adam Harrison Levy, David Monteyne, Philomena Mariani, and Erin Barnett.
After the nuclear attacks in August 1945, President Truman dispatched members of the USSBS to Japan to survey the military, economic, and civilian damage. The Survey’s Physical Damage Division photographed, analyzed, and evaluated the atomic bomb’s impact on the structures surrounding the Hiroshima blast site, designated “Ground Zero.” The findings of the USSBS provided essential information to American architects and civil engineers as they debated the merits of bomb shelters, suburbanization, and revised construction techniques.
The photographs in this exhibition were in the possession of Robert L. Corsbie, an executive officer of the Physical Damage Division who later worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. An architectural engineer and expert on the effects of the atomic bomb, he used what he learned from the structural analyses and these images to promote civil defense architecture in the U.S. The photographs went through a series of unintended moves after Corsbie, his wife and son died in a house fire in 1967.
The U.S., at war with Japan, detonated the world’s first weaponized atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a vast port city of over 350,000 inhabitants, on August 6, 1945. The blast obliterated about 70 percent of the city and caused the deaths of more than 140,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in another 80,000 fatalities. Within a week, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, effectively ending World War II.
“Once part of a classified cache of government photographs, this archive of haunting images documents the devastating power of the atomic bomb,” said ICP Assistant Curator of Collections Erin Barnett, who organized the exhibition.