Oil workers (from the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain

Overview

David Claerbout is best known for his large-scale video projects, which often combine moving and still images to unsettle the delineation between past and present. Meticulously reconstructed from a found photograph, this portrait shows a group of Nigerian men as they seek shelter from monsoon rains.

At first, the hastily taken snapshot seems to show people who will quickly walk away as soon as the rain ends. But sometimes photographs speak twice: a second look reveals a sense that these people are stuck. The video uses 3-D computer techniques and a simple camera movement, setting adrift the original image’s certainties. Drought, conflict and poverty surround Africa like a cloud of flies, determining the picture we have of the continent. It is rarely portrayed as wet, which is the central matter of this piece and an ideal point of departure for a story about the oil industry.


2013

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 11

Courtesy of the Artist and galleries Hauser & Wirth, Yvon Lambert, and Micheline Szwjacer.