After a career in neurobiology Jean Nordmann decided to leave his research institute at the age of 44 and devote himself to humanitarian work. For more than 20 years he worked as a delegate and head of mission for the International Commitee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UNO and various nongovernment organizations, stationed in many African countries (Republic of Guinea, Congo, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic), in Papua (Papua, West Papua, Indonesia), Afghanistan und Ex-Yugoslavia. A Nikon Coolpix 4500 accompanied him on his missions, which Nordmann used to portray his closest colleagues and the people around him, capturing their seemingly unspectacular everyday life, which after taking a second glance- along with the photographer’s comments in the exhibition- reveal very normal madness as regulated extreme situations. With contextual knowledge the photograph of two summery-clothed children linked arm-in-arm, strolling through the streets takes on a new meaning: that the two children have peacefully secured a piece of carefree life, which neither of them have consciously experienced before, in the midst of an air raid in an Ex-Yugoslavian city cannot be seen in the picture; however an ambivalence of power and fragility unfolds in the tension between picture and text, which can be found in much of Nordmann’s work. Therefore the photography demands a kind of slow reading; they are to be understood as a visually compressed narrative, which must be released from its constraints with words.



The exhibition «Beauty in Bitterness» would like to focus on this Janus-faced phenomenon, these moments of light heartedness in times of despair, which Nordmann came across again and again on his missions and which is the common bond in all the various situations, ethnic groups and countries portrayed: the silence amidst all hopelessness from which renewed courage can arise; the simplicity of luck, which can hover like dust on the heaviest appearance of things- in short, the twinkling moments of beauty within all the bitterness of war and its contradictions.



Alexandra Stäheli, Collaborating curator



P.S. The aim of the exhibition and of the book is to raise money to assist a school for AIDS orphans in the Republic of Central Africa. Nordmann travels to Central Africa on a regular basis and brings directly the funds to the school where it is used to build and improve the classrooms, the kitchen, the dormitories, the well etc. and to purchase school material.