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Disco Night Sept. 11

An extensive and intimate account of Peter van Agtmael's experiences at home and abroad during America's wars from 2006-2013

Peter van Agtmael

Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 A sign outside Arbor Ridge Catering and Banquet Hall advertising a 1970s-style Disco Night. New York, USA. 2010. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 A mock courthouse exercise in which an American lawyer makes a case against a suspected insurgent. The case was dismissed on lack of evidence. Mock villages and elaborate exercises seek to recreate (...)
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 A weary American soldier stands guard as a residential home is searched. Rawah, Iraq. 2006. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 A helicopter comes to land on an impromptu helipad built into the side of the mountain at the outpost of Aranas. Nuristan, Afghanistan. 2007. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 Raymond plays with Star Wars lightsabers with his sons Brady and Riley. Wisconsin, USA. 2007. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 An Iraqi soldier guards a hut after a raid on a farming hamlet. Mosul, Iraq. 2006. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 'Wounded' soldiers are treated during a combat lifesaving course that attempts to train soldiers to treat common wounds during simulated combat. South Carolina, USA. 2011. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 Raymond Hubbard with his wife (now ex) Sarah at their home in Darien. Wisconsin, USA. 2008. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 A Marine after a firefight with the Taliban. Afghanistan. August 16, 2009. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 SGT Russell in VPB California, a small U.S. outpost in the Pech Valley. Kunar, Afghanistan. 2007. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 A moment of levity for an American patrol exploring the countryside outside Mosul, Iraq. 2006. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 Bobby in his Motel 6 room after performing his comedy routine. Bobby Henline, 41, veteran of four tours to Iraq and sole survivor of an IED blast that killed the other four soldiers in his humvee i (...)
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 An IED detonates on a Marine patrol. It was detonated too soon by the triggermen, and no one was killed or seriously wounded. Afghanistan. August 16, 2009. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos
Peter van Agtmael | Disco Night Sept. 11 Bobby Henline, 41, veteran of four tours to Iraq. Humble, Texas, USA. 2013. © Peter van Agtmael | Magnum Photos

Disco Night Sept. 11 is a chronicle of America’s wars from 2006-2013. The photographs shift back and forth from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the USA, unsparingly capturing the violent, ceaseless cost, but also the mystery and the madness, the beauty and absurdity at the core of each conflict. The narrative is complemented by nineteen gatefolds which elaborate on places and individuals.

Photographs are fragments, sometimes only loosely tied to important experiences. An extensive text records some of the missing pieces. The stories that precede and follow the moment of the photograph, conversations with soldiers, anonymous graffiti that’s part confession, part boast. Disco Night Sept. 11 is an expansive yet intimate account of this defining era of history.

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