Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before - Hardcover

Michael Fried

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300136846 ISBN 13: 9780300136845

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2008

Synopsis

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 contro-versial essay "Art and Objecthood" (1967)-have come to the fore once again in recent photography. This means that the photo-graphic "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 Hoefer, 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.

About this title

Review:

"Michael Fried addresses this complex and impenetrable subject with élan ... A triumph."

Book Description:

"[Michael Fried] excels with this provocative survey, excellently realized by Yale."

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0300136846
• ISBN 13: 9780300136845
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 410