Gianni Wise, “ Decaptioned” (instal view), 2001. Photo: Gianni Wise

Gianni Wise, “ Decaptioned” (detail), 2001. Photo: Gianni Wise

Bronia Iwanczak, Suzanne Treister, Philipa Veitch, Gianni Wise, “Disaster Tourism” (instal view), 2001. Photo: Bronia Iwanczak

Disaster Tourism, catalogue, 2001

Decaptioned, Disaster Tourism, Rubyayre, 2001
Bronia Iwanczak, Suzanne Treister, Philipa Veitch, Gianni Wise
Curated by Bronia Iwanczak

Decaptioned. Manilla folders, folders, MDF, metal brackets, office chair, paper, twine, flour, copies of released files from negotiations between Henry Kissinger and the Chilean Secret Police, copies of redacted surveillance files that the Chilean secret police maintained, personal diaries. The cardboard filing systems pointed to the surveillance files that the Chilean secret police and courts had maintained for so many of their citizens. Inserted with records from Kissinger’s relationship with the coup and personal accounts during the time I lived there. Shelving and chair. Packets of flour. The packet simply referred to food parcels and perhaps torture.
See *Catalogue essay* by Richard Grayson.
An exhibition reflecting on the nature of disaster as a form of tourism; a form of entertainment for the North. Cultural voyeurism?

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from Broadsheet review by Alex Gawronski (The Art of Living Dangerously: Disaster Tourism – Broadsheet 10, 2001)

“Distinct from Iwanczak’s photographic exploration is Gianni Wise’s collection of forlorn manila folders. These amass on a sagging wooden shelf in piles and bundles. Beneath them are a series of indistinct paper-wrapped packages one can only assume contain food or some other basic human necessity. The folders themselves contain files and personal reminiscences of the years the artist spent in Chile under the dictatorial reign of Augusto Pinochet. The work, therefore, evinces a sense of direct exposure to the disasters of political tyranny. At the same time, Wise evokes in his accounts a decidedly self-deprecating humour. The artist recounts attempts to master Spanish while approximating first hand the full extent of the political destruction wreaked by Pinochet’s regime.“