A Conversation with Richard Mosse

Richard Mosse, artist, with Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art, and Andrea Nelson, associate curator of photographs, National Gallery of Art Irish photographer Richard Mosse (b. 1980) attempts to capture the complex realities of loss and destruction. Having gained initial recognition and acclaim for his work on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mosse became increasingly frustrated with the constraints of conventional documentary photography. In an attempt to refresh the medium and reengage viewers, Mosse began using a military-grade surveillance camera, focusing on migrants and refugee camps. Locating his subjects and creating images through thermal radiation, Mosse subverts the aggression of the military technology to reveal the hardships of those displaced by war. This work culminated in the 52-minute video Incoming, filmed by Trevor Tweeten with a score by Ben Frost, that vacillates between scenes of the profoundly beautiful and the meditative, the terrifying and the horrific. In conjunction with the installation opening at the National Gallery of Art on November 17, 2019, Mosse discusses this narrative of displacement and migration in a conversation with curators Sarah Greenough and Andrea Nelson. Incoming is on view through March 22, 2020.