Sacrificed on the Altar of Humanity
Text by Fabien Franco, art critic and philosopher at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, April 2004

At the origin of the creation of Iseult Labote, a crime against humanity. The humanity of a man crucified by his attackers, torturers, and fellow human beings. On one side, a suffering humanity, shedding its blood on the earth of a wasteland; on the other, a barbaric, extreme, and blind humanity.

Iseult Labote chose to denounce this part of humanity that feeds on hatred and dogma. A collective crime highlighted through the multiple faces of the tortured man, Harry McCartan. Through the use of religious codes and symbols, Iseult Labote refers to the founding myths of societies. As Vanessa Morisset* points out, “Iseult Labote’s photographic paintings reveal a world of religiosity,” being here at the heart of both reflection and representation.

The grandeur of a first cross, entitled “The Trouble with Harry,” which ended up crushing what it should have glorified, where the Irish banner and the suffering of a Catholic coexist. Placed against the wall like the overly heavy weight of the collective act, the cross questions the nature of the crime. The weight of History, Politics, Religion, of a past and a present laden with hatred and frustration, where victims transform into executioners. Where the wounded gaze of swollen faces seems to rest, the viewer is led to question their own guilt in being. Could there be an original sin to be forgiven? The Catholic cross, formed from the Orthodox cross, broadens the scope of investigation. This Byzantine representation of the crucified person blurs the evidence of a duality between the Catholic and Protestant communities of Northern Ireland. In the third performance, “Ex-Voto,” the subtle ecumenical transition occurring throughout the installation evokes unity, tolerance, and respect for otherness. The repetition of images—photos taken from television news—acts on the unconscious like so many mirrors in which each of us is reflected.

Second cross, the Acheiropoitès, second way of approaching discrimination, relentless devaluation of the defined identity, in order to fight against prejudices. Pious images, news images, the work of Iseult Labote explores the different facets of perception. Because these are images stolen by the photographic eye from the television screen, the representation given here of the news item acts as the catalyst of a contemporary reality subjected to the image. The photographer, far from adopting a disillusioned stance, reaffirms a desire, through the numerous metaphors that punctuate her work, to place Man at the center of her concerns. As part of a reflection on Human Rights, a previous installation “September 11th” marked Iseult Labote’s commitment to opposing cathode images with a reflection on the power systems that govern information, justice and peace in the world. Human life is sacred, which is probably why it is faces that set the pace. In this second representation, the cross becomes a symbol of the problem; it is the cross that hammers out its yellow sermon, punctuating our perception. In its name, the crime was committed. It is this indelible mark imprinted on thought.

Image or icon, the Orthodox cross of the Ex-voto illustrates, through its dimension, an eidetic reduction and in doing so questions our values, and restores balance. This intuitive intentionality of the artist who seeks to understand but also to denounce, reveals in this ultimate representation the stakes of the discourse. Would the right to difference come through the acceptance of our humanity, however complex it may be? What remains, in fact, of Harry McCartan, a martyr once illuminated by current events, forever bearing the stigmata of an involuntary passion?

Still using the same weapons used to propagate mass information, that is, the cathode-ray screen, the film “Who Killed Harry?” takes up the opening scenes of Alfred Hitchcock’s feature film “Who Killed Harry?”. The church of Polglass, Harry McCartan’s parish, replaces the one in the film. Instead of the gunshots heard, Iseult Labote’s film makes hammer blows heard, then comes the moment when the viewer sees Harry McCartan’s head. The unpleasant aftertaste left by these three minutes of film shows how ambiguous the moving image can be. Have we not become, in spite of ourselves, powerless voyeurs of the drama?

News item: In the Protestant neighborhood of Seymour Hill in Belfast, a young Catholic, Harry McCartan, was found crucified in a vacant lot in November 2002. The 15 cm nails had been bent to make extraction more difficult. The images photographed by Iseult Labote of Harry McCartan were filmed at the hospital where the victim had to be transported with the sawn-off beams still nailed to the palms of his hands.