Kai Wiedenhöfer

For more than 20 years Kai Wiedenhöfer has been taking photographs in the Middle East, a place where many journalists and photographers have covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet Wiedenhöfer is unique in that he concentrates exclusively on Gaza, and often remains there to take photos long after the media has moved onto more 'pressing' news stories. Even in 2009 after the offensive of the Israeli army, Wiedenhöfer was in Gaza. During this time he took disturbingly quiet, almost repetitive pictures of the bleak aftermath of the war that form The Book of Destruction. Wiedenhöfer's images of crumbling ruins and maimed civilians are a powerful landscape of disquiet and destruction.
Co-published with Fondation Carmignac Gestion, Paris