Did You Kiss
the Dead Body?
the Dead Body?
2012
19 (8+11) ink drawings
on 2 marbled autopsy reports
2022
8 mixed media paintings on canvas
19 (8+11) ink drawings
on 2 marbled autopsy reports
2022
8 mixed media paintings on canvas
Brown Shirt, Gray underpants, Gray T-shirt, White shirt …” (Sisters)
“FINAL AUTOPSY DIAGNOSIS:
g. No internal evidence of trauma …” (Brothers)
“During his confinement he was hooded, sleep deprived,
and subjected to hot and cold environmental conditions,
including the use of cold water on his body and hood.” (Uncle)
“The body is that of an unclad well-developed
well-nourished male.” (College Athlete)
“The decedent was also subjected to cold and wet conditions,
and hypothermia may have contributed to his death. Therefore,
the cause of death is best classified as undetermined …”
(The Thinker)
“The renal capsules are smooth and thin, semi-transparent
and strip with ease from the underlying smooth,
red-brown cortical surfaces.” (Sons)
“There are fractures of the anterior left ribs 3–7
and the right 5th rib on the anterior aspect.” (Poet)
“This male died while in US custody in Abu Ghraib prison.
By report he complained to his son and then collapsed.”
(New Wave)
In 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posted on its website autopsy reports and death certificates authored by US military officials working on bases and in prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq. This formerly classified information was made public under the Freedom of Information Act of the United States. Kahlon uses these government documents as the foundation for this collection of artworks. For over ten years, the artist reflected on the contents of these records and how they might shape public perception—both consciously and unconsciously—of the dead, the people of these regions, and the US military’s role in these deaths. The reports use clinical terms to describe and sort the causes of death—from “natural” to “undetermined” and “homicide”. Copies of official documents are printed on paper marbled in hues of red, pink, and orange that bring to mind a cross section of a human body or blood cells under a microscope. Over the printed medical data, the artist layers graphic images, such as portraits of actual Afghans and Iraqis, and parts of the human body as the object of scientific study and torture. When viewed as a whole, the work underscores the power and abuse wielded by the US military in the treatment of Afghan and Iraqi boys and men who died in US custody. The title, Did You Kiss the Dead Body?, is the final line of the poem “Death” by British writer, director, and actor Harold Pinter. Pinter read this work aloud as part of the lecture he gave upon receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005, a speech that was steeped in criticism of American foreign policy and centered around notions of art, truth, and politics.