Description
Object description
A green card folder containging three documents: a description of the set, including production details; a certificate of authenticity; a descriptive text by the artists.
In 2002 Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell were commissioned by the Imperial War Museum's Art Commissions Committee to respond to the aftermath of the attacks that took place on September the 11th and the war in Afghanistan. During their 2 week visit to Afghanistan they were given permission to attend the Supreme Court in Kabul and film the trial of Abdullah Shah, nicknamed Zardad's Dog. It was alleged that Shah was kept as a 'human dog' by Afghan warlord Faryadi Sarwar Zardad and used to attack victims with his teeth before murdering them. The artists filmed Shah's trial with a hand-held camera, editing their footage down to produce this 12 minute film, in which they felt that: 'the protagonists, and the procession of witnesses... seem to symbolize the struggle of the Afghan people to come to terms with the terrible devastation of the last twenty three years, as they rebuild their lives'. Both the trial and the film proved controversial. Shah was found guilty and executed in secret in April 2004, making this the first capital trial after the fall of the Taliban. Human rights groups questioned whether Shah had received a fair trial and also claimed that he may have been executed because he was a key witness to several major incidents of human rights abuse.
The film itself was first shown as part of an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum entitled The House of Osama Bin Laden, for which Langlands and Bell were nominated for the Turner Prize. However, a few days before the Turner Prize exhibition opened at the Tate Gallery in 2004 the artists were advised that displaying the film could endanger the Old Bailey trial of Shah's 'master', Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, who had been discovered living in South London. The work was eventually shown at the Tate in 2005.
Physical description
A cloth-bound presentataion box containing a DVD copy of the film, a BETA SP copy, a green card folder containging three documents: a description of the set, including production details; a certificate of authenticity; a descriptive text by the artists.