Cult figures and great leaders suffer the same fates and indignities as the rest of us. Queen Elizabeth II wears spectacles. Does this make her less credible as a head of state or does it make it easier for the rest of us to identify with her? I was in Slovenia earlier this year where I found something out that I thought was both extraordinary and mundane at the same time. Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from the end of WWII until his death, had his leg amputated in a Ljubljana hospital four months before he died on May 4, 1980. His state funeral in Belgrade was the largest state funeral ever, attended by no less than four kings and countless presidents from all over the world. There’s something I find intriguing about these two things. Amputations are messy affairs, and something that (God forbid) can happen to anybody. State funerals are the complete opposite. How can I approach this photographically?
Friday, July 18, 2008
Tito’s leg revisited
Cult figures and great leaders suffer the same fates and indignities as the rest of us. Queen Elizabeth II wears spectacles. Does this make her less credible as a head of state or does it make it easier for the rest of us to identify with her? I was in Slovenia earlier this year where I found something out that I thought was both extraordinary and mundane at the same time. Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from the end of WWII until his death, had his leg amputated in a Ljubljana hospital four months before he died on May 4, 1980. His state funeral in Belgrade was the largest state funeral ever, attended by no less than four kings and countless presidents from all over the world. There’s something I find intriguing about these two things. Amputations are messy affairs, and something that (God forbid) can happen to anybody. State funerals are the complete opposite. How can I approach this photographically?
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