Apropriation

Street execution of a Vietcong prisoner taken by Eddie Adams1968, for many Americans certain photographs came to symbolize the brutality of Vietnam War. One was Adam’s picture of a South Vietnamese police chief, Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan, shooting a Vietcong prisoner in the head point blank range in the streets of Saigon. It was in the midst of the wild street fighting during the Tet offensive, when the Vietcong were sweeping through the cities of South Vietnam. The picture won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Adams, who took it for the Associated Press. Ironically, he later became a friend of Loan’s and often attempted to explain the context for the brutal act that the picture alone could not provide: Vietcong guerrillas had recently massacred a South Vietnamese colonel, his wife and six children in their home.

Vietnam with Love

2011

Tommas Titus Kurniawan