Inconvenient Evidence
November 16, 2004, 2:18 p.m. EST

Few photographs in recent years have had the explosive impact of the grainy images of Iraqi detainees being tortured by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. This small exhibition includes a broad selection of the photographs and examines how the emergence of these shocking photographs call into question the relationship between photography and war.

Two months ago, Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum and the International Center for Photography in New York City opened their collaborative exhibit Inconvenient Evidence: Iraqi Prison Photographs from Abu Ghraib.1 The exhibition comprises several of the infamous prisoner abuse photographs taken by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, printed from the Internet and fastened, unframed, to plain walls. The Warhol and ICP intend Inconvenient Evidence to raise questions about the nature of photography and of war, and to examine "if in fact 'the horror of what is shown in the photographs cannot be separated from the horror that the photographs were taken.'”2 While those are certainly worthwhile subjects to explore, it is a profound breach of ethics to publicly display of the Abu Ghraib photographs without consent of the victims.

The exhibition of explicit photos of torture is not in itself unethical. The problem is that the Abu Ghraib pictures are not just explicit photographs of torture—the photographs themselves are torture, and their exhibition prolongs the suffering of the victims.3

Many of the Abu Ghraib photos4 depict Muslim prisoners humiliated—naked, forced into homosexual positions. My understanding is that, in Muslim society, a man being seen naked or sexually subservient to another man intensely shames him, a shame well beyond compare in our own society. Some of the Abu Ghraib prisoners have made it known that they would rather have been killed than to have been forced into such humiliation.

Those who ordered the torment at Abu Ghraib choreographed the torture to play on that sense of shame, and photography was an integral part of the psychological abuse. The torture was incomplete without being photographed, because humiliation alone is only humiliation. Humiliation becomes torture when it is documented for all to see.5 And when one exhibits those photographs, one continues that torture, prolonging the humiliation begun at the prison, and extending the abuses committed against those victims.

We must remember that the victims of those photos are not actors. They are not historical figures whose bloodlines have since died off or forgotten them. They are living, breathing people trying to resume their lives. Public display of the most horrible wrongs committed against them6 requires their consent. With their permission, an exhibition of the photographs becomes ethically appropriate. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, the organizers of Inconvenient Evidence did not obtain, or even seek, approval of the victims.

To be fair, we do need to ask if the potential benefits of displaying the photos outweigh the cost to the victims. One such benefit, as noted above, is increased critical thinking and intellectual inquiry into, for example, the wages of war and the powers of photography. Another might be that the exhibition creates such a repulsion in those who witness it that they take active steps to prevent future torture and human rights abuses.

While it would be nice if both of those things happened, they are only potentialities, which don't trump the abuse perpetuated by the exhibit.7 Even if those benefits were certain results of the display, they would not excuse the exhibit's organizers from receiving the permission of the victims—just as the potential benefits of a medical study do not permit a doctor to enter unconsenting patients into it.

The International Center for Photography and the Warhol (and any other facilities displaying the pictures) should do the ethical thing and close down the exhibit of Abu Ghraib photographs until they can obtain approval from the victims. While the photos remain on display, patrons should show respect for the abused and leave them unseen.


1I'm withholding direct links to the exhibit's web site for reasons that will become clear below. You can easily find it via Google, if you like. It should also be noted from the outset that I have not attended the exhibit (mostly for the same reason I'm withholding the link). I don't feel that disqualifies me from discussing it, however, because my argument deals with the general act of displaying the Abu Ghraib photographs, not with the specific content of Inconvenient Evidence (or any other exhibit). Back

2Inconvenient Evidence press release, International Center for Photography Back

3Of whom I can't find any mention in the materials released in conjunction with Inconvenient Evidence. Back

4With which I'll assume the reader is familiar and spare us both a detailed recounting of their content. Back

5One can easily imagine the abusers taunting the victims with stories of their plans to post the photographs on the walls around Baghdad, to show them to the victims' wives, to their fathers. Back

6I'd like to emphasize what "public display" means in this case. Think of the most humiliating moment of your life. Imagine if that moment had been photographed. Now imagine that the photographs of that moment were displayed in a museum where thousands of people paid money to look at them. This accurately represents the experiences of the Abu Ghraib victims, with the exception that their humiliation is many degrees worse than that of most readers of this essay. Back

7I should point out that this is true regardless of any context provided for the photographs at the exhibit. Remember that, even if a kick in the groin comes along with a 100-page, annotated explanation of the kick and what will be learned by it, it's still just a kick in the groin. Back

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