Object number2022.3.3

Youths practice throwing contact bombs in forest surrounding Monimbo

Portfolio/Seriesfrom the series Nicaragua

Date1978

Artist Susan Meiselas (American, born 1948)

CultureAmerican

MediumChromogenic print; printed 2015

EditionEdition 5 of 12, plus 2 artist proofs

DimensionsImage: 24 x 16 in. (61 x 40.6 cm)
Sheet: 26 1/4 x 18 1/4 in. (66.7 x 46.4 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, gift of Mrs. Frederick Ferris Thompson, by exchange

On View

Not on view

Period20th c

Classification(s)

Photograph

SignedOn verso, signed on a label fixed to the lower right corner: Susan Meiselas

InscribedOn verso, on a printed label affixed to the lower right corner: Youths practice throwing contact bombs in forest / surrounding Morimbo, 1978 / is a chromogenic print made under my supervision / by Esteban Mauchi at Laumont, NYC, 2022 / This is print no 5/12 20 x 30" / Susan Meiselas

BibliographyMeiselas, Susan. Nicaragua: June 1978-July 1979. New York: Pantheon, 1981, pl. 23; Meiselas, Susan. Nicaragua, June 1978-July 1979. New York, Aperture, 2016, p. 25; Weissman, Terri. Impossible Closure: Realism and Durational Aesthetics in Susan Meiselas's Nicaragua. Duke University Press, 2016, p. 300ProvenanceHigh Pictures Generation Gallery

Vassar Exhibitions

Women at Work: Photography and Labor

Label TextKnown for her immersive approach to photography, Susan Meiselas made these photographs in Nicaragua at a culturally and personally defining moment for the people she met. They bear witness to the human experiences of the Sandinista uprising which, in 1979, led to the overthrow of the Somoza family dictatorship. Featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine on July 30, 1978, Youths practice throwing contact bombs in forest surrounding Monimbo has accrued the monumentality of an icon but, typical of Meiselas’s photographs, this image embodies an intimate moment of trust. Wearing Indigenous masks to protect their identities and grasping homemade explosives, her subjects used the experience of being photographed to convey their own power. Meiselas developed a lasting friendship with the man in the middle of the photograph, a young shoemaker named Justo Gonzalez, with whom she stayed in contact until his death in 2016. She reflected: “Perhaps the most meaningful act of my life as a photographer is that he asked that the photograph I’d made of him be buried with him.” Julia Pippenger ’25 and Jessica D. Brier, Curator of Photography

DescriptionThree adolescents wearing masks of local indigenous traditions kneel on the forest floor and look at the camera as they hold homemade explosives.

Terms

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu