Tate Modern has a small but varied collection of Wilhelm Sasnal’s work on permanent display. Born in Poland in 1972, He typically identifies a digital image online or from his own photographic archive rather than images found in printed publications. Usually Sasnal will complete his paintings in one sitting over the course of a single day as is the case with this series of paintings, created very quickly and spontaneously in a matter of days.
Upon entering the gallery space, you are immediately presented with Sasnal’s ‘Gaddafi 3’ (2011). This work forms part of a 3-painting series which was created in the stark aftermath of the death of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of the Misrata Militia in October 2011 and is the only painting in the series to depict the corpse of the deposed leader and yet without the paintings title it would be impossible to know who was being observed in this image. This is not portraiture. As with the entire series ambiguity and confusing permeate through each painting, graphic and disturbing and yet all seem to have a solemnness about them, maybe the enormity of what had transpired fell on the shoulders of those present? The scale and palette of this work gives it a direct physical relationship between the viewer and the militia who are observing their quarry. The dramatically foreshortened figure literally falling off the bottom edge of the canvas recalls Andrea Mantegna’s painting Lamentation of Christ (1480). And is a work driven by his internal conflict after the former leader’s corpse was displayed on a supermarket Refrigerator’s floor. (fig.1)
The reading of this work, to me, gives a clear insight to Sasnal’s abhorrence at what had been portrayed through mass media, his use of materials, the speed he created the work gives a very precise narrative where the viewer is made to feel like an uncomfortable voyeur, uneasy at what they are witnessing, the starkness of the imagery is chilling. Is this a lamentation of a dictator, or possibly the level the news feeds and networks will sink to ‘to get the story’? or was he trying to give the body some sort of dignity? Sasnal is documenting and recording what he sees as proof of his time and of his world.
Hanging opposite you find ‘Gaddafi 1’ (2011) fig.2 This smaller painting depicts the body of the dictator viewed from an elevated and inverted perspective, but rather than show the corpse directly, Sasnal shows an amorphous mass of impasto resting on what appears to be a mattress. The paint alludes to the ripped and torn body, contrasting Sharpley with the thinly washed background.
Next to this but on the opposite side of the entrance you see ‘Gaddafi 2’ (fig.3) Perspective here is from below, looking up at the militia. This gives a posthumous view and a potential empathy with the victim. In composition the painting in Sasnal’s typical style in that the original digital image has been cropped to great effect which focuses on the observers while the use of colour is economical, and a simple palette of pail pinks and greys used to present an image stripped bare of superfluous brushwork. The victim is powerless, and with perspective the viewer is equally bereft of agency with the shadowed militia bearing down upon them. Overall, I found this series of paintings very powerful, not just because of my own memories of the news broadcasts or how the west congratulated themselves on a job well done but, in the way, Sasnal has described the public imagery in a very personal yet simplistic and graphic way.
Michael Palmer 