He stands before us, large as life, the old artist in his museum. With his right arm he holds up the heavy, purple velvet curtain so that we can cast a first glance at the wonders of the carefully arranged collection in the long, light hall behind. On the left wall begin several rows of showcases: miniature dioramas, all the same size and shape. Exhibited within are stuffed birds of various provenances. Above them, reaching up to just under the ceiling and completing the wall, are a series…

To capture death, you need the right technique and the right moment. The public, filmed death of Neda Agha-Soltan had just been sent from Tehran via email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and every possible television station to the entire networked world when the usual reflex of media critique and propaganda began. Since the photographic image can no longer be trusted, yet no one wants to deprive themselves of it, the roles in this short-lived game are predefined. The anonymously made video,…

At the start of his official state visit in June 2009, revolutionary leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, meanwhile the world’s longest-serving head of state, gave the Italian audience a lesson in matters of colonial history. He had a slightly retouched black-and-white photograph pinned to his uniform, and the entire country found out that depicted on it Omar al-Mukhtar, leader of the Libyan resistance against the Italian colonial regime. The famous photo shows the nearly seventy-year-old man after…