Bennington Presents Photographic Exhibition Documenting the War in Iraq

Major Benjamin Busch isn’t your typical Iraq War veteran. An actor appearing on HBO’s hit series “The Wire”, Busch volunteered for a second tour of duty and eloquently documents the experience, drawing from his training as a studio artist, in photographs. Attentively capturing his tours, this dual exhibition includes “The Art in War,” which reveals images from his first tour in 2003 and “Occupation,” which documents his second tour in 2005. Bennington College will host an opening reception on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 at 6:00 pm, in the Usdan Gallery, VAPA, with a lecture by the artist delivered in the College’s Tishman Lecture Hall at 7:00 pm. Both events are free and open to the public.

Busch’s unique experience with the Iraq War has captivated national attention with appearances on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, National Public Radio, American Public Media, as well as coverage in the Associated Press, the New York Times, and Harper’s magazine, among others.

Busch, who has held similar exhibitions at Vassar College and the University of Maryland, has compared his photography of Iraq to the work of archeologists. He explains, "Archeologists are forced to search for and imagine the lives of lost people by uncovering relics that prove that they existed. In some ways I am searching for the same things while they are still on the surface, while they are still informally displayed, before we wait long enough to consider them historical evidence.”

Documenting his first tour in Iraq (2003), Busch describes these photographs as illustrating a “period of calm” after the invasion, while his exhibition “Occupation” covers his second tour of duty (2005), depicting, as Busch explains “the often-painful post-war reality.”

A month after Major Busch and his Delta Company took part in the Iraq invasion he was assigned as the Provisional Military Responsible Officer for the city of Jassan. He helped lead the organization of a city council, police force, and other civilian infrastructure before his tour ended. More recently in Ar Ramadi, he was mediating reconstruction efforts among newly elected Iraqi government officials, and various municipal directors, contractors, and local leaders.