New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Vietnam Era Museum and Education Center Exhibition Revisits Vietnam in Photographs

The New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Museum and Educational Center presents Ghosts in the Landscape: Vietnam Revisited, an exhibition of 46 prints by photographer and ex-combat marine Craig J. Barber, on view September through November. The exhibit is on loan from the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY.

Barber spent 20 months in Vietnam as a teenager and returned three times to traverse many of his former military routes with an 8x10 pinhole camera. His return to the land where he once fought resulted in a dreamlike and introspective study of place.

“Memory runs deep in my veins as I wind my way along narrow dirt paths and bamboo groves, past straw houses and barking dogs,” said Barber. “More than once, as I wander the small hamlets, I have felt on patrol, the weight of my pack reminiscent of those days and the tripod feeling like a weapon. But now I am searching for images instead of ‘Charlie.’”

In 1995 Barber first revisited the battered and distant country where he had come of age, returning twice more over four years. His photographs take us toward some other Vietnam, far and near from the place we have pictured for many years. The majority of the exhibition’s images are platinum prints, created by Barber, who is an accomplished platinum printer. The tonality of the platinum process produces stunningly rich blacks and a full spectrum of delicately nuanced shades of gray. Barber created diptych and triptych panorama images that capture serene beauty and, at times, for him, the all-too memorable landscapes.

“These profound and dreamlike photographs are far from the horrific images we carry inside us that reduce Vietnam to a place of perpetual guerilla war,” said Dr. Alison Nordström, George Eastman House’s curator of photographs. “These pictures look like dreams imperfectly remembered. Still and slow as they are, they suggest an imminent scream of fear or anger beneath an apparent tranquility.”

When stationed in Vietnam, Barber was not a serious photographer, but carried an instamatic with his combat gear throughout his tour of duty. His career as a photographer blossomed in the 1970s and took off in the 1980s. Today he is best known for his provocative landscape photographs and is recognized as one of America’s premiere landscape photographers. His work has been featured in more than 60 solo exhibitions and is represented in numerous collections including George Eastman House, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris. A native of Honeoye Falls, N.Y., Barber lives in the Hudson Valley and teaches photograph workshops throughout the United States and Europe.

Accompanying the exhibition is a 60-page catalogue of the same title, with an essay by Nordström (Umbrage Editions, 2006).

About The New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Museum And Educational Center

Vietnam Era Museum and Educational Center, provides a means to present factual and unbiased information about the Vietnam era. Using exhibits, audio/visual presentations, structured programs and guest speakers, visitors are provided with a forum for ongoing discussion and an opportunity to gain a better understanding of America‘s most divisive period since the Civil War. Supplemental programs, such as veterans‘ biographies, are intended to recognize and document the contributions made by New Jersey‘s veterans so that their service to our nation will be preserved for future generations. Visit www.njvvmf.org for more information.

About George Eastman House

George Eastman House is the world’s oldest photography museum, founded in 1947 on the estate of Kodak founder George Eastman. The museum has unparalleled collections of 400,000 photographs from 14,000 photographers dating from daguerreotypes to digital; 16,000 items of cameras technology; 28,000 motion picture titles and 3.5 million publicity stills and posters; and one of the world’s most comprehensive library of photographic books, manuscripts, and journals. In modern archives adjacent to the National Historic Landmark home, the museum offers world-leading graduate and post-graduate programs in photograph and film preservation.