Why photography matters as art as never before

Abstract

"From the late 1970s onward, serious art photography began to be made at large scale and for the wall. Michael Fried argues that this immediately compelled photographers to grapple with issues centering on the relationship between the photograph and the viewer standing before it that until then had been the province only of painting. Fried further demonstrates that certain philosophically deep problems, associated with notions of theatricality, literalness, and objecthood, and touching on the role of original intention in artistic production, first discussed in his controversial essay "Art and Objecthood" (1967), have come to the fore once again in recent photography. This means that the photographic "ghetto" no longer exists - instead photography is at the cutting edge of contemporary art as never before." "Among the photographers and video-makers whose work receives serious attention in this powerfully argued book are Jeff Wall, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Andreas Gursky, Luc Delahaye, Rineke Dijkstra, Patrick Faigenbaum, Roland Fischer, Thomas Demand, Candida Hofer, Beat Streuli, Philip Lorca diCorcia, Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, James Welling, and Bernd and Hilla Becher. Future discussions of the new art photography will have no choice but to take a stand for or against Fried's conclusions."--BOOK JACKET.

Contents

1. Three Beginnings -- 2. Jeff Wall and Absorption; Heidegger on Worldhood and Technology -- 3. Jeff Wall, Wittgenstein, and the Everyday -- 4. Barthes's Punctum -- 5. Thomas Struth's Museum Photographs -- 6. Jean-Francois Chevrier on the "Tableau Form"; Thomas Ruff, Andreas Gursky, Luc Delahaye -- 7. Portraits by Thomas Struth, Rineke Dijkstra, Patrick Faigenbaum, Luc Delahaye, and Roland Fischer; Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's Film Zidane -- 8. Street Photography Revisited: Jeff Wall, Beat Streuli, Philip-Lorca diCorcia -- 9. Thomas Demand's Allegories of Intention, "Exclusion" in Candida Hofer, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Thomas Struth -- 10. "Good" versus "Bad" Objecthood: James Welling, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Jeff Wall -- Conclusion: Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before.