A very widespread but underappreciated form of exhibiting pictures is their presentation by human hands. This literal carrying of pictures by bodies often takes place in situations where, at the same time, pictures are produced of this very thing. The resulting multiple framings of the pictures create complex double exposures, which have long been a popular formula of image journalism. In acts of performance  and demonstration based on ideological conviction or individual mourning, the usage of visual objects with different physical properties is both a corporal and an  identifying practice. It is the site of an often nearly animistic exchange between the authority of the images held and the authenticity and ‘vitality’ of the carrier. Carrying Pictures brings together excerpts from press photographs, fragments from a treatise on visual theory, and scenes from the feature film Under Fire (Roger Spottiswoode, USA 1983) into a paradidactic demonstration of the practices and practical knowledge in the visual spaces of the political. The unavoidably staged quality of such observations of a second or  third order is emphasized by the original soundtrack by Robert and Roland Lippok (To Rococo Rot, Tarwater), which dramatizes the text-image-event without illustrating it.

(Image: Tom Holert. Carrying Pictures: A Case Study in Visual Politics)