One of my photographs in the “New Faces” exhibition at the New Indianapolis Airport was removed without discussion. The portrait of Shai Sarfati, an Israeli, who served in the military was taken down after someone complained about it to the Airport Commission. They apparently found it offensive that an Israeli soldier would feel regret that, on occasion, innocent Palestinian civilians are sometimes killed after Israel retaliates for Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. Shai’s portrait is on this website as is his story–you can read and decide for yourself whether his words should be censored or used to address issues of the complexities of war (what Primo Levi referred to as the “moral gray zone”). The Indianapolis Star ran a few front page stories and an editorial on the controversy:

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090103/LOCAL18/901030427
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090109/LOCAL1804/901090426
http://www.indy.com/posts/airport-gallery-missing-a-voice

And in Nuvo:
http://www.nuvo.net/blog/entertainment/hoppe-art-traffic-control-iaa
http://www.nuvo.net/blog/art/hoppe-arts-more-about-airport

I have begun to slowly incorporate the new portraits of Vietnamese veterans with “Inconvenient Stories”. Catherine Edelman showed a few of the new pieces at Art Chicago in the spring. This fall I had the first show that combined the portraits of Vietnamese veterans with the American vets at University of Kentucky Art Museum as part of the Robert May Lecture Series. Janie Welker, UKAM’s Curator, did a terrific job making connections between the soldiers from the competing armies in terms of the stories and visual relationships. I will be returning to Vietnam in January 2009 to finish the photography for this project which began during my year as a Guggenheim Fellow back in 1992. 

My commission for the New Indianapolis Airport was installed in November in time for the airport’s public opening. The new airport is, by the way, an architectural marvel. I have 16 large format portraits of recent immigrants on display along with their stories of coming to America–it is a look at the American Dream in the 21st century. IU Press and the International Center of Indianapolis co-published the accompanying book which has all 30 of the portraits and stories.The airport commission has been a learning experience, to say the least: my first real foray into the realm of public art. When my work was shown at the Whitney, MoMA, et al., they didn’t have to worry about people smashing into the photographs with their luggage, nor about liability if a piece fell off the wall and maimed a 5 year old. I didn’t have to take a drug test nor watch training films about how dangerous ladders can be when I had my solo shows at the Art Institute of Chicago or ICP. And ethnic and religious groups weren’t lobbying to have this piece or that removed from whatever museum or gallery because it might offend somebody. Anyway, if you happen to find yourself at the Indy airport with time between flights, have a look and let me know what you think.

Last summer I began a sequel to “Inconvenient Stories”. I became interested in the Vietnamese perspectives on the war and wanted to know more about how the Vietnam War affected Vietnamese lives by photographing their faces and recording their stories. I have been building contacts in the Vietnamese-American community and have traveled to Washington, DC, Chicago and Indianapolis to photograph and interview ARVN veterans.

I have been to rural North Carolina to photograph Montagnards, the indigenous tribal people from the Central Highlands of Vietnam who fought alongside American Special Forces in the war. All of these veterans fled to America when Saigon fell or in the following years after spending time in reeducation camps.

I have recently returned from Vietnam where I photographed and interviewed veterans of the American War (as it is called in Vietnam to differentiate it from the French War, Japanese War, Chinese Wars, etc.).

It was an amazing experience–the people were uniformly warm and welcoming, their stories profoundly moving. I traveled in the company of John Linnemeier, one of the veterans in “Inconvenient Stories”. Former enemies, the NVA veterans and John would share war stories, show each other their wounds, laugh, cry, hug. I will be posting a selection of the portraits on my website in the near future when I have a chance to process them. I will be continuing with portraits of Vietnamese veterans living in the US and will return to Vietnam for a longer period of time to continue to photograph and interview vets there.

Along with “Inconvenient Stories” the series will provide a comprehensive look at how war affects combatants from all sides and civilians caught in the crossfire. My work aims to heal some of the wounds caused by the war to both American and Vietnamese societies.

Welcome to the web site. You can view portfolios for each of my bodies of work, information on publications and so on.

I’m currently working on a commission for the Indianapolis Airport, currently photographing immigrants in central Indiana and developing those images into an installation and a book to be published by the Indiana University Press in the Fall of 2008.

Inconvenient Stories: Vietnam War Veterans was recently published by Umbrage Editions. The exhibition is on tour and will be coming to the Indiana University Art Museum in June.

Check back for updates on this blog. –jeff