Ten photographs from Andres Serrano’s Torture series were recently exhibited at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. The large images on display belong to a comprehensive body of work that Serrano completed in 2015. The artist traveled to over fifteen cities in Europe, where he photographed torture museums, concentration camps, Stasi prisons, victims of torture, and medieval torture devices. In addition, he staged torture practices with tens of volunteers. Chosen for the display at Stills were six images of four volunteers placed in degrading positions simulating torture tactics, three images of historical torture devices, and one portrait of the ex-Central Intelligence Agency analyst and whistleblower John Kiriakou—the man who revealed the CIA’s widespread use of waterboarding to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners in 2007.1 Through the documentation of multiple subjects, locations, and objects linked to torture, Serrano’s works flatten time in favor of pointing to torture as a panhistorical and universal human...

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