"Holy Bible", A Provocative New Work by Broomberg and Chanarin

THE GUARDIAN
By Sean O'Hagan

Adi Ophir's essay in Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin's work, Holy Bible, 2013.

UNITED KINGDOM---At first glance, artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin's new work, The Holy Bible, looks just like an old-fashioned Bible: a black cover with a title embossed in gold. Inside, though, many of the pages of holy writ have been overlaid with photographs that refer obliquely to specific passages or words underlined in red. A few thunderously violent lines from Exodus – "… lie for lie. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth … wound for wound, life for life" – are illustrated by an image of an atomic bomb's mushroom cloud. A black-and-white photo of a couple kissing, meanwhile, refers to "My lips … My tongue … my delight" from Psalms. Each time the line "And it shall come to pass" appears (which is often), it is accompanied by shots of circus performers or magicians. [link]

• The phrase "arrows drunk with blood" (Deuteronomy 34:32), for instance, is accompanied by a graphic photograph of the blood-soaked corpses of two young women. 
• A shocking image of Holocaust concentration camp victims, their bodies piled in a heap, is linked to the words "princes of the congregation" (Joshua 9:15) . 
• Then, there is Broomberg and Chanarin's appropriation of the already infamous photograph of a Palestinian child dressed as a suicide bomber which, here, is linked to the lines "As is the mother, (so is) her daughter" (Ezekiel 16:44).
• Elsewhere, there is a pornographic portrait of a naked young man with an erection and others of couples having sex, as well as photographs of suicide victims, Nazis in uniform, deformities and disfigurements.