Memorial to the Iraq War

The ICA's new Director of Exhibitions Mark Sladen is a breath of fresh air. This exhibition seeks to draw attention to the continuing bloody conflict in Iraq, which began in 2003. According to the press release, to date 3,300 American soldiers, 140 British soldiers and at least 650,000 Iraqi soldiers and civilians have been killed. The ICA has asked 25 artists from Europe, the Middle East and America to make proposals for a memorial to the Iraq War (so far).

Klaus Weber has made a beautiful hatching unit for butterflies which then fly around the gallery or escape out of the window. He was inspired by the US post 9/11ban on importing butterfly larvae in case they were used to smuggle anthrax in. Yael Davids has erected a human shield at the entrance to the gallery. A group of people hold up a board in which holes have been cut for their lips to poke through. After his stunning installation at Hauser and Wirth Coppermill, Christoph Büchel has created a sinister recreation of a drugs testing unit in the gallery. Lida Abdul reminds us of the reverberations of 9/11 in countries suspected of aiding and abetting the perpetrators. She presents a rack of postcards of destroyed, anonymous buildings in Afghanistan intended for circulation. Erik van Lieshout's film is a kind of irreverent road movie around America in which the Iraq War maintains a ghostly, behind-the-scenes presence. Roman Ondak presents a single-use camera of undeveloped photographs recently taken in Baghdad.

AM