A provocative exhibit of photographs by Benjamin Busch, a major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, opens in the NISK-ART Gallery at Niskayuna High School on Monday March 5, 2007. The display, entitled "The Art in War," is composed of images Busch took while deployed in Iraq in 2003 as commanding officer of Delta Company, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.

"The Prints featured here are selected from a series of 100 photographs named "The Art In War".  All of the photographs were taken between April and September of 2003 using a 35mm Canon EOS Elan 7.  I was serving as the commanding officer of a Marine Corps Light Armored Reconnaissance company during the invasion, liberation and occupation of Iraq and, when security permitted me I carefully recorded the unique obscurities of the country from my perspective.  Cubism, symbolism, abstraction, icons and iconography, photography and photojournalism, portraiture and cave paintings are all referenced in these images and they are as much about history and discovery of arts as they are a particular record of Iraq.  They demonstrate the perspective and the necessity of artists to find art in their surroundings despite circumstance."
(Benjamin Busch)

This traveling exhibit drew immediate and widespread attention from national and international media outlets, with stories by the Associated Press, the European and Middle East editions of Stars and Stripes, the Washington Post and Baltimore's The Sun, and coverage on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Fox's Live with Tony Snow, Fox News First, and others.

Educated as a studio artist at Vassar College and trained as a soldier by the Marines, Busch saw the Iraq conflict from a unique perspective. What struck him as profound, others might well have overlooked. Often his greatest challenge, though, was to capture an image without being overly intrusive.

"People take on different relationships to their environment when they feel that they are being observed," Busch told one reporter, "and they discard a certain honesty when they are aware of the camera." To guard against that, Busch often told village leaders that he needed photographs of something else-sewer pipes, for instance-while "accidentally" recording images of the people and architecture that caught his eye. The results are far from the ordinary-often startling or touching, sometimes heartbreaking, but never cliche'd.

Busch left the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in March 2004 to pursue an acting career. Recent credits include his current role as Officer Colicchio on HBO's The Wire, as well as appearances on NBC's The West Wing and Homicide, Life on the Street, among others. He was recalled to active duty in 2005 and redeployed to the Anbar Province, which includes the city of Fallujah.

Currently he is playing detective Anthony Colicchio in the HBO series, The Wire. His TV series credits also include The West Wing and Homicide, Life On The Street, and his films include Rules of Engagement and South of Hollywood. At present he is working on a short fiction film, The Forest, for which he co-wrote the screenplay and is the director.

"The Art in War" is free and open to the public and is on display in the Nisk-Art Gallery at Niskayuna High School located at 1626 Balltown Road, Niskayuna, NY from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily through March 2007.

For further information or to schedule an interview with Benjamin Busch, please contact Scott Walroth, District Director of Art Education or Steve Honicki, Gallery Club Advisor