A standard art-ontological position is to construe repeatable artworks as abstract objects that admit multiple concrete instances. Since photographic artworks are putatively repeatable, the ontology of photographic art is by default modelled after standard repeatable-work ontology. I argue, however, that the construal of photographic artworks as abstracta mistakenly ignores photography’s printmaking genealogy, specifically its ontological inheritance. More precisely, I claim that the products of printmaking media (prints) minimally must be construed in a manner consistent with basic print (...) ontology, the most plausible model of which looks decidedly nominalist (what I call the relevant similarity model) and that as such, photographic artworks must be likewise construed, not as abstracta but as individual and distinct concreta. That is, the correct ontological account of photographic art must be one according to which photographic artworks are individual and distinct concrete artworks. In the end, I show that the ontology of photographic art resists the standard repeatable-work model because the putative repeatability of photographic artworks is upon closer inspection nothing more than the relevant similarity relation between individual and distinct photographic prints. (shrink)

The algorithmic turn in photography raises the question of whether an algorithmically generated image is even a photograph at all. This paradox is abundant on India's urban streets, where the pedestrian or road user is met with giant photo saturated flex hoardings printed with political and community messages and photo-shopped portraits of gods, chief ministers and party workers. In this article, attention to photo-based political posters alongside art practices sharing common elements of digital capture and postproduction contextualizes a reading of (...) technologically produced visual landscapes in the South Indian city of Bangalore. Informed by Vilèm Flusser, the techno-materiality of hoardings are interpreted as visual practices whose reliance on Microsoft and Adobe softwares reveal more than the semiotic information that is ostensibly transmitted; in so doing the extent to which photography is a useful entry point for assessing the visuality in which we're currently living and how this gets locally inflected in the case of India is explored. (shrink)

A collection of photographs depicts life on Chicago's west side between 1949 and mid-1960s.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts holds the Upper Midwest's most significant permanent collection of fine photographs. Covering the entire history of the medium, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. This beautiful book opens with an 1845 salt print by the English inventor William Henry Fox Talbot and closes with a 2002 color portrait by Alec Soth from his series Sleeping by the Mississippi. In between, selected images represent the genres of documentary photography, photojournalism, and street photography. Included are (...) Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" and Arthur Rothstein's "Dust Storm," as well as Edward Weston's "Pepper No. 30" and Ansel Adams's "Moonrise, Hernandez." Commemorating the collecting legacy of Carroll T. Hartwell, the founding curator of the museum's department of photographs, this book reveals Hartwell's critical eye for singular historical photographs and his belief in the influence and vitality of accomplished contemporary photographers. In an introductory essay, Christian A. Peterson recounts the history of the museum's photography collection and Hartwell's indelible imprint on the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. (shrink)

낸 골딘의 친언니 바바라는 18세에 자살했다. 낸의 부모는 바바라의 죽음을 회피했고 낸은 슬픔 속에 끝없이 기억했다. 프로이트의 「슬픔과 우울증」에 대한 전통적인 독해에 따르면, 전자와 후자는 모두 바바라를 성공적으로 애도하지 못한 것이 된다. 그러나 애도는 반드시 성공해야 하며 사랑의 대상은 대체되어야 한다는 주장은 의문스럽다.BR 프로이트는 우울증을 위한 치료법을 찾고자 나르시시즘과 사디즘이라는 우울증의 두 양상을 분석했지만 ‘자아와 타자의 동일시’에서 병적 특성은 혼란을 야기한다. 반면 데리다는 성공적 애도를 확신하지 않으며, 그 과정이나 결과에도 의문을 제기한다. 상실한 사랑의 대상은 사랑하는 자의 삶 속에 살아있고, 애도의 (...) 작업은 내면화가 아니라 온전한 타자, 이방인으로 기억할 때 가능하다.BR 슬픔, 우울과 같은 일상의 감정이 꼭 정상/비정상으로 구분될 수 없으며 삶의 비극성에서 나온 다양한 부정적 감정들은 우리의 삶을 전환하고 격려하고 구성한다. 본고는 이를 위해 프로이트의 「슬픔과 우울증」을 다시 읽고, 데리다의 애도의 작업을 통해 타자와 유령이 함께 사는 슬픈 삶의 힘을 논의한다. 또한 그 사례로 낸 골딘의 사적 제의로서의 개인초상 사진을 탐구한다. 낸 골딘은 바바라가 아니라 스스로를 바꿈으로써 자신의 일상 속에서 바바라를 기억하고 함께 살아가게 했다. (shrink)

Review of: Documents of Doubt: The Photographic Conditions of Conceptual Art, Heather Diack (2020)Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 296 pp.,ISBN 978-1-51790-757-0, p/bk, $30.00.

In White Noise by Don DeLillo, two characters visit a famous barn, described as the “most photographed barn in America” alongside hordes of picture-taking tourists. One of them complains the barn has become a simulacrum, so that “no one sees” the actual barn anymore. This implies that there was once a real barn, which has been lost in the “virtual” image. This is in line with Plato’s concept of the simulacrum as a false or “corrupt” copy, which has lost all (...) connection with the “original.” Plotinus, however, offered a different definition: the simulacrum distorts reality in order to reveal the invisible, the Ideal. There is a real building which has been called “the most photographed barn in America”: the Thomas Moulton Barn in the Grand Teton National Park. The location—barn in the foreground, mountain range towering over it—forms a striking visual composition. But the site is not only famous because it is photogenic. Images of the barn in part evoke the heroic struggles of pioneers living on the frontier. They also draw on the tradition of the “American sublime.” Ralph Waldo Emerson defined the sublime as “the influx of the Divine mind into our mind.” He followed Plotinus in valuing art as a means of “revelation”—with the artist as a kind of prophet or “seer.” The photographers who collect at the Moulton Barn are themselves consciously working within this tradition, and turning themselves into do-it-yourself “artist-seers.” They are the creators, not the slaves of the simulacrum. (shrink)

Since the 1960s, many artists have incorporated ecological concerns into their work, an endeavor that has required new strategies in art-making. To explore recent American manifestations of these interests, the David and Alfred Smart Museum commissioned new projects from artists Mark Dion, Peter Fend, and Dan Peterman, each focusing on interrelationships between particular organisms—human beings-and a specific group of sites—a museum building, a river landscape, and a university campus. The results, exhibited at the Smart Museum during the summer of 2000, (...) evoke the varied scales, from the microscopic to the global, at which human actions affect the environment. This catalog documents each of the artists' projects through an array of images and words: Smart Museum Associate Curator Stephanie Smith provides an introduction and brief overviews of the three projects, each of the artists contribute statements, and photographers Susan Anderson and Tom van Eynde document—in over 100 images—the processes and projects that comprise the exhibition. (shrink)

The puzzle that concerns me is whether it is possible to establish a substantive difference between photographic images and other kinds of visual image, which can explain the special epistemic and aesthetic qualities of photographs, without giving way to scepticism about photographic art. In this essay I offer a philosophical account of the photographic process which is able to resolve this tension. I use this account to argue that, while some photographs are mind independent, mind independence is (...) not a defining feature of all photographs. My account is substantive because it distinctively distinguishes the photographic process from other image-making processes and is able to explain the special qualities of photographs. It is also schematic, because it covers the fullest range of photographic technologies across a comprehensive range of applications. Finally, it is clarificatory because it is able to clear up misunderstandings and resolve philosophical problems. Beyond these theoretical aims, my broader purpose is to provide an account that has applicability for a wide range of art history cases and, furthermore, is acceptable to photographic practitioners. The paper was first presented at the Stockholm Museum of Modern Art, in an interdisciplinary symposium. (shrink)

In this article, we comment upon and provide an arts-informed example of an emotive-focused reflection of a health care practitioner. Specifically, we use poetry and photographic imagery as tools to un-earth practitioners’ emotions within agonizing and traumatic clinical encounters. In order to recognize one’s own humanness and authentically engage in the art of medicine, we immerse ourselves in the first author’s poetic and photographic self-reflection. The poem and image are intended to inspire interpretation and meaning based on the (...) reader’s own professional and/or personal context. The last line of the poem is “I take off the gloves. My hands are marked.”. (shrink)

Resumo: A fotografia, como ferramenta, apresenta principalmente a relação entre pessoas e objetos, por meio do uso de elementos artísticos, como luz, sombra e cor, nas imagens. A criação de fotografias é uma atividade que requer inspiração e habilidades. Isso exige que os fotógrafos observem e pensem cuidadosa e profundamente sobre a estrutura geral do trabalho, a fim de tirar boas fotos que sejam artísticas e bem pensadas. O desenvolvimento e a popularização da fotografia, na sociedade atual, não podem ser (...) subestimados por seu impacto na estética pública e no pensamento humanístico. Este artigo tem, como objetivo, analisar a conotação estética da fotografia chinesa e explorar seus padrões e valores estéticos. Os pensamentos filosóficos da fotografia chinesa são explorados, e suas reflexões e perspectivas sobre a vida e a sociedade são analisadas. A relação e a influência mútua, entre as conotações estéticas e os pensamentos filosóficos na fotografia chinesa, são exploradas, e sua importância e influência nos trabalhos fotográficos são analisadas, para que se possa entender e apreciar melhor a singularidade da fotografia chinesa. A fotografia chinesa é uma forma única e diversificada de expressão artística que reflete o rico patrimônio cultural e o desenvolvimento social da China. Ao enfatizar a harmonia, a integração de elementos de pintura, a narração de histórias e a apreciação da natureza, a fotografia chinesa proporciona uma experiência estética profunda e transmite significados mais profundos de unidade, tranquilidade e a relação entre as pessoas e o meio ambiente. (shrink)

How might philosophers and art historians make the best use of one another's research? That, in nuce, is what this special issue considers with respect to questions concerning the nature of photography as an artistic medium; and that is what my essay addresses with respect to a specific case: the dialogue, or lack thereof, between the work of the philosopher Stanley Cavell and the art historian-critic Rosalind Krauss. It focuses on Krauss's late appeal to Cavell's notion of automatism to argue (...) that artists now have to invent their own medium, both to provide criteria against which to judge artistic success or failure and to insulate serious art from the vacuous generalization of the aesthetic in a media-saturated culture at large.1 Much in the spirit of ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’, paying attention to the medium is once again an artist's best line of defence against the encroachment of new media, the culture industry, and spectacle. That Krauss should appeal to Cavell at all, let alone in such a Greenbergian frame of mind, is surprising if one is familiar with the fraught history of debate about artistic media in art theory since Greenberg. Cavell's work in this domain has always been closely associated with that of Michael Fried, and the mutual estrangement of Fried and Krauss, who began their critical careers as two of Greenberg's leading followers, is legendary.2I have written about the close connection between Fried's and Cavell's conceptions of an artistic medium before.3 Whereas Fried's and Cavell's early conception of an artistic medium was in a sense collaborative, emerging from an ongoing exchange of ideas at Harvard in the latter half of the 1960s, Krauss's much later appeal to the ideas of automatism and the automatic underpinning Cavell's conception of the photographic substrate of film from the early 1970s is not. In what follows, I try to clarify both the grounds of this appeal and its upshot. Does Krauss's account shed new light on Cavell's, or is she trying to press his terms into service for which they are ill-served? Both could of course be true, the former as a consequence of the latter perhaps. Conversely, do the art historical and philosophical accounts pass one another by? Note that even if the latter were true, its explanation might still prove instructive in the context of an interdisciplinary volume seeking to bring art historians and philosophers into dialogue around the themes of agency and automatism, which is precisely what Krauss's appeal to Cavell turns on. (shrink)

The article considers how the use of duplicates and the practice of photography interacted in museums of ethnography, contributing to the ambivalent framing of ethnographic objects as items that can be both scientific specimens and works of art. It focuses on the Musée d'ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris and on the key period of its reorganization between 1928 and 1935, which was central to the institutionalization of French ethnology. By examining the place of duplicates in this museum, as well as (...) the major role attributed to photographs of objects and their materiality, the paper shows that these others of the ethnographic artefacts, often considered separately from their originals, still participated in the same project: the development of the museum and its growing cultural influence. While the duplicates positioned the museum in the various networks of the scientific community, the photographs appealed to the avant-garde, amateurs, African and Oceanian art dealers and the general public. (shrink)

This essay begins with a puzzle in metaphysics, the unity dilemma . The enduring debate between monists and pluralists can be understood in terms of a single problem, the supposed impossibility of including the bulk of our naive ontology in a single, all-embracing ontological category. Either one insists, as the monist does, on a unified ontology at the cost of surrendering much of our naive ontology to reduction or non-existence, or one accommodates the bulk of our naive ontology by accepting (...) more than one fundamental ontological category. ;For a suggestion of how we might resolve the dilemma, we turn to the case of photography. Because photographs---like symphonies, novels, words, and species---have occurrences, there is a temptation to think they must belong to a different ontological category from paintings and other central members of our ontology. I investigate a received view about such 'multiple' works of art, that they should be understood within the framework of types and tokens. I argue that the type approach fails to correctly account for photographs precisely because it ignores a sustained analogy between photographs and paintings. Unlike types, both photographs and paintings are temporal items, subjects of change and modal possibility, and are ontologically grounded in the physical world. ;I then generalize the lessons of photography and formulate a distinction between real and idealized objects. Real objects are genuinely historical objects, those which exist temporally, are subject to temporal and modal alteration, are susceptible to causal interaction, and are ontologically grounded in the physical world. Idealized objects lack one or more of these features, either because they lack a genuine history or because their existence is cut loose from any ontological grounding in this world. I argue that this distinction is independent of traditional distinctions between physical and mental, concrete and abstract, and particular and universal, and suggest that there are examples of real objects in all these categories. The category of the real is a promising candidate for resolving the unity dilemma because it shows us how seemingly disparate members of our naive ontology turn out to category-matcs after all. (shrink)

The essay aims to outline an epistemology of photography through the critical issues that arise from the encounter between photography and sculpture. In particular, it investigates the aesthetic and semiotic constraints that define the specificity of the photographic look with respect to a sculptural three-dimensional vision. The relationship between documentary and art photographs is the main area of research; specifically, the essay tries to highlight the interpretative value that can also be attributed to documentary photography, underlining the boundaries of (...) a complex distinction. A specific section is devoted to Medardo Rosso’s photographs of his own sculptures. Rosso’s work solicits a reflection on the status of photography and on some theoretical problems such as reproducibility, the relationship between original and copy, and the creative gap produced by variation in a series. The artist suggests a peculiar “grammar” of photography by virtue of his relationship with another art – sculpture. (shrink)

In a recent article, Dawn Wilson (2021) has argued against single-stage accounts of photography by arguing against the latent photographic images upon which those accounts depend. Concomitantly, she argues that the only viable account of photography is multi-stage. Unlike single-stage accounts, multi-stage accounts do not postulate the existence of photographic images of any kind prior to development. Rather, according to multi-stage accounts, photographs are produced from “photographic registers.” In this Discussion Piece, I defend single-stage accounts by arguing (...) that Wilson’s rejection of latent photographic images is premised on an implausible view of what a latent photographic image is. Given a reasonable interpretation, the latent images described in single-stage accounts just are the photographic registers described in multi-stage accounts. (shrink)

Photography has become a pervasive component of contemporary communication. Recent technological advances in creating and manipulating images have provided renewed impetus to decades-long debates on use of photographs in science. With increase in the potential for inappropriate image manipulation, fears about misrepresentation have heightened concern among journal editors and scholars about the 'accuracy' of published images. We discuss how science has responded to growing concerns surrounding falsification and inaccuracy of photography. We document progress in implementing a variety of complementary approaches (...) to addressing the problem. These include digital forensics, photo member checking and the implementation of codes of ethics to enhance the veracity of published photographs in science research. We conclude by acknowledging the irreducible conflict likely to remain between use of the photograph as a creative work of art and employment of this medium as a source of information in the progress of science. (shrink)

When we look at photographs we literally see the objects that they are of. But seeing photographs as photographs engages aesthetic interests that are not engaged by seeing the objects that they are of. These claims appear incompatible. Sceptics about photography as an art form have endorsed the first claim in order to show that there is no photographic aesthetic. Proponents of photography as an art form have insisted that seeing things in photographs is quite unlike seeing things face-to-face. (...) This paper argues that the claims are compatible. While seeing things in photographs is quite unlike seeing things face-to-face, nevertheless seeing things in photographs is one way of seeing things. The differences between seeing things by means of photographs and by means of the naked eye provide the elements of an account of the aesthetic interests photographs engage. (shrink)

This issue investigates the meaning of photographic image for contemporary art. In Malraux' dream, photography offers the ultimate guarantee for a coherent presentation of art. However, as Douglas Crimp has stated, the appearance and enhancement of photography as a form of art among other art forms disrupted the center of the art world. What does this mean for art and philosophy in our time? Various artists and theorists will delve into that question: Christian Boltanski, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Jean-François Chevrier, (...) Douglas Crimp, Jos de Mul, Mirjam de Zeeuw, Rineke Dijkstra, Michael Gibbs, Rodney Graham, Gerald van der Kaap, Karen Knorr, Zoe Leonard, Ken Lum, Hermann Pitz, Liza-May Post, John Roberts, Allan Sekula, Andres Serrano, Jan Simons, Beat Streuli, John M. Swinnen, Renée van de Vall, Hilde van Gelder, Hripsimé Visser, Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace and Herta Wolf. (shrink)

. The author first engages the problem of defining the value of a photograph, not in terms of its commercial or monetary value but of its actual or potential use. Walter Benjamin's influential writings on photography are discussed, notably his complex metaphor of "aura" as applied to both handmade art and the photograph, with the author challenging Benjamin's contention that works of art do not require titles, whereas photographs do.

My great-grandfather died before I was born. He never saw me. But I see him occasionally—when I look at photographs of him. They are not great photographs, by any means, but like most photographs they are transparent. We see things through them.Edwin Martin objects. His response consists largely of citing examples of things which, he thinks, are obviously not transparent, and declaring that he finds no relevant difference between them and photographs: once we slide down the slippery slope as far (...) as photographs there will be not stopping short of absurdity. The examples fail in their purpose, but they will help to clarify the reasons for the transparency of photographs. Several of them can be disposed of by noting that they jeopardize the transparency of photographs only if they jeopardize the very possibility of perception. The others appear to reflect a misconception of the issue before us and the nature of my claim.To perceive something is, in part, to have perceptual experiences caused by the object in question. This is scarcely controversial. It is also uncontroversial that additional restrictions are needed—not all causes of one’s visual experiences are objects of sight—although exactly what the required restrictions are is a notoriously tricky question. One important restriction is that the causation must be appropriately independent of human action , in a sense which I explained . This, I argued, is what distinguishes photographs from “handmade” pictures, which are not transparent. Seismographs and footprints are caused just as “mechanically” as ordinary photographs are. So are photographs that are so badly exposed or focused that they fail to present images of the objects before the camera. So, also, are the visual experiences of those who look at seismograms, footprints, and such badly focused or exposed photographs. Yet we obviously do not see the causes of these things through them, Martin claims. How is it, then, that we see through ordinary photographs? Kendall L. Walton is professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan and author of a book on representation in the arts . His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism,” appeared in the December 1984 issue. (shrink)

According to the orthodox view, photographic artworks are abstract objects. This view, however, has recently been challenged by Christy Mag Uidhir. In his article ‘Photographic Art: An Ontology Fit to Print’, he argues in favour of a nominalist construal of photographic artworks. My goal is to show that Mag Uidhir’s argument is unpersuasive.

There is a history of thinking that photographs provide a special kind of access to the objects depicted in them, beyond the access that would be provided by a painting or drawing. What is included in the photograph does not depend on the photographer’s beliefs about what is in front of the camera. This feature leads Kendall Walton to argue that photographs literally allow us to see the objects which appear in them. Current generative algorithms produce images in response to (...) users’ text prompts. Depending on the parameters, the output can resemble specific people or things which are named in the prompt. This resemblance does not depend on the user’s beliefs, so generated images are in this sense like photographs. Given this parallel, how should we think about AI-generated images? (shrink)

Why does art matter to us, and what makes it good? Why is the role of imagination so important in art? Illustrated with carefully chosen colour and black-and-white plates of examples from Michaelangelo to Matisse and Poussin to Pollock, _Revealing Art_ takes us on a compelling and provocative journey. Kieran explores some of the most important questions we can ask ourselves about art: how can art inspire us or disgust us? Is artistic judgement simply a matter of taste? Can art (...) be immoral or obscene, and should it be censored? He brings such abstract issues to life with fascinating discussions of individual paintings, photographs and sculptures, such as Michelangelo's _Pieta_, Andres Serrano's _Piss Christ_ and Francis Bacon's powerful paintings of the Pope. He also suggests some answers to problems that any one in an art gallery or museum is likely to ask themselves: what is a beautiful work of art? and can art really reveal something true about our own nature? _Revealing Art _is ideal for anyone interested in debates about art today, or who has simply stood in front of a painting and felt baffled. (shrink)

We are told by philosophers that photographs are a distinct category of image because the photographic process is mind-independent. Furthermore, that the experience of viewing a photograph has a special status, justified by a viewer’s knowledge that the photographic process is mind-independent. Versions of these ideas are central to discussions of photography in both the philosophy of art and epistemology and have far-reaching implications for science, forensics and documentary journalism. Mind-independence (sometimes ‘belief independence’) is a term employed to (...) highlight what is important in the idea that photographs can be produced naturally, mechanically, accidentally or automatically. Insofar as the process is physical, natural, mechanical or causal it can occur without human agency or intervention, entirely in the absence of intentional states. Presented innocuously, the idea is that although photographs are dependent on natural or mechanical processes, they can be produced independently of human agency – particularly human beliefs. Presented in a stronger form, the claim is that even if human agency is heavily involved in the production process, the definitive features that make the photograph a photograph and determine its salient properties are nonetheless independent of human minds. In epistemic debates, mind-independence is viewed as essential for explaining why photographs occupy a distinct category among images and justifying a variety of claims about their privileged epistemic and affective status in science, forensics, popular culture and journalism. But, in the philosophy of art, claims about mind-. (shrink)

This Discussion Piece is a response to Mark Windsor's Discussion Piece (2023) 'Photographic Registers are Latent Images', which is a response to my article, (2021) 'Invisible Images and Indeterminacy: Why we need a Multi-stage Account of Photography' JAAC 79(2) 161-174.. -/- I argue that a photosensitive surface does not produce invisible pictorial features when it is exposed to light, and conclude, contra Windsor, that a photographic register is not a latent image. I argue that Windsor does not succeed (...) in defending a single-stage account of photography and I reconfirm that a multi-stage account is correct. (shrink)

It's time to see Photoshop as a tool of your craft This book is not about "fixing it in Photoshop." It's about how you, the serious nature photographer, can use technology to enhance your art. Rob Sheppard sees Photoshop not as an eraser for mistakes and the effects of careless shooting, but as an artist's tool, one that assists you in the craft of producing art from your digital camera. He shows you how to use Photoshop CS2 to extend tonal (...) range, remove color haze, correct lens distortions, create multi-frame panoramas, and so much more--all to reveal the work of art you knew was there all along. * Learn to apply Photoshop techniques to the unique requirements of landscape and nature photography * Be aware of correct exposure when shooting for Photoshop * Use layers to enhance images and correct tonality and color for optimum images * Discover a better way of dodging and burning * Understand midtones and manage color correction with an eye to the finished product * Process images twice in Camera Raw for better shadow and highlight detail * Explore how Photoshop CS2 can support proven techniques used by the masters of traditional nature photography Photoshop offers great power for controlling color so you can get natural, realistic colors that best express what you see in nature Unsharp Mask is unmasked so that you can get the most from this powerful sharpening tool Utilize the best methods of black-and-white conversion. (shrink)

Siegfried Kracauer was a leading figure on the Weimar arts scene and one of the foremost representatives of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Best known for a wealth of writings on sociology and film theory, his influence is felt in the work of many of the period’s preeminent thinkers, including the critic Theodor W. Adorno, who once claimed he owed more to Kracauer than any other intellectual. Kracauer.Photographic Archive, a companion volume to The Past’s Threshold: Essays on Photography, (...) collects previously unpublished photographs by Siegfried and Elisabeth, “Lili,” Kracauer. With its remarkably rich material, the book tells the story of the Kracauer’s close working relationship, from their marriage in Germany to their escape to Paris and the war and postwar years in the United States. While neither Kracauer nor his wife trained in photography, their portraits, city views, and landscapes evince impressive aesthetic and technical skill, while simultaneously shedding light on their lives marked by exile and flight. (shrink)

In No Caption Needed, Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites provide the definitive study of the iconic photograph as a dynamic form of public art. Their critical analyses of nine individual icons explore the photographs themselves and their subsequent circulation through an astonishing array of media, including stamps, posters, billboards, editorial cartoons, TV shows, Web pages, tattoos, and more. Iconic images are revealed as models of visual eloquence, signposts for collective memory, means of persuasion across the political spectrum, and a (...) crucial resource for critical reflection. Arguing against the conventional belief that visual images short-circuit rational deliberation and radical critique, Hariman and Lucaites make a bold case for the value of visual imagery in a liberal-democratic society. No Caption Needed is a compelling demonstration of photojournalism’s vital contribution to public life. (shrink)

IN THE winter and spring of 1031,1 was invited to give a series of ten lectures at Harvard University. The subject chosen was the Philosophy of Art; the lectures are the origin of the present volume. The Lectureship was founded in memory of William James and I esteem it a great honor to have this book associated even indirectly with his distinguished name. It is a pleasure, also, te recall, in connection with the lectures, the unvarying kindness and hospitality of (...) my colleagues in the department of philosophy at Harvard. I am somewhat embarrassed in an effort to acknowledge indebtedness to other writers on the subject. Some aspects of it may be inferred from authors mentioned or quoted in the text. I have read on the subject for many years, however, more or less widely in English literature, somewhat less in French and still less in German, and I have absorbed much from sources which I cannot now directly recall. Moreover, my obligations to a number of writers are much greater than might be gathered from allusions to them in the volume itself. My indebtedness to those who have helped me directly can be more easily stated. Dr. Joseph Ratner gave me a number of valuable references. Dr. Meyer Schapiro was good enough to read the twelfth and thirteenth chapters and to make suggestions which I have freely adopted. Irwin Edman read a large part of the book in manuscript and I owe much to his suggestions and criticism. Sidney Hook read many of the chapters, and their present form is largely the result of discussions with him; this statement is especially true of the chapters on criticism and the last chapter. My greatest indebtedness is to Dr. A. C. Barnes. The chaptershave been gone over one by one with him, and yet what I owe to his comments and suggestions on this account is but a small measure of my debt. I have had the benefit of con versations with him through a period of years, many of which occurred in the presence of the unrivaled collection of pictures he has assembled. The influence of these conversations, together with that of his books, has been a chief factor in shapingmy own thinking about the philosophy of esthetics. Whatever is sound in this volume is due more than I can say to the great educational work carried on in the Barnes Foundation. That work is of a pioneer quality comparable to the best that has been done in any field during the present generation, that of science not ex cepted. I should be glad to think of this volume as one phase of the widespread influence the Foundation is exercising. I am indebted to the Barnes Foundation for permission to reproduce a number of illustrations and to Barbara and Willard Morgan for the photographs from which the reproductions were made. J. D. (shrink)

In _Art Can Help_, the internationally acclaimed American photographer Robert Adams offers over two dozen meditations on the purpose of art and the responsibility of the artist. In particular, Adams advocates art that evokes beauty without irony or sentimentality, art that “encourages us to gratitude and engagement, and is of both personal and civic consequence.” Following an introduction, the book begins with two short essays on the works of the American painter Edward Hopper, an artist venerated by Adams. The rest (...) of this compilation contains texts—more than half of which have never before been published—that contemplate one or two works by an individual artist. The pictures discussed are by noted photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Emmet Gowin, Dorothea Lange, Abelardo Morell, Edward Ranney, Judith Joy Ross, John Szarkowski, and Garry Winogrand. Several essays summon the words of literary figures, including Virginia Woolf and Czeslaw Milosz. Adams’s voice is at once intimate and accessible, and is imbued with the accumulated wisdom of a long career devoted to making and viewing art. This eloquent and moving book champions art that fights against disillusionment and despair. Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery. (shrink)

Recent advances in paleoarchaeology show why nothing in the Tate Modern, where a conference on "Agency & Automatism" took place, challenges the roots of 'the idea of the fine arts' (Kristeller) as high levels of craft, aesthetics, mimesis and mental expression, as exemplifying cultures: it is by them that we define our species. This paper identifies and deals with resistances, early and late, to photographic fine art as based on concerns about automatism reducing human agency--that is, mental expression--then offers (...) the fuller account of agency lacking in such discussions. But fine art is not the only value classification we use. (shrink)

This paper approaches the problem of the ontology of the photographic image ‘post-digitalization’ historically, via a conception of photography as the historical totality of photographic forms. It argues, first, that photography is not best understood as a particular art or medium, but rather in terms of the form of the image it produces; second, that the photographic image is the main social form of the digital image ; and third, that there is no fundamental ontological distinction regarding (...) indexicality between photographically generated digital images and those of chemically based photography. ‘The anxiety about the real’ produced by digital imagery has its origins elsewhere, in the ontological peculiarities of the social form of value in societies based on relations of exchange. Distinguishing between the ‘event of capture’ and the ‘event of visualization’, it is argued that it is in its potential for an infinite multiplication of visualizations that the distinctiveness of the digital image lies. In the digital image, the infinite possibilities for social exchange generated by the abstraction of value from use finds an equivalent visual form. (shrink)

That photography is a supremely realistic medium may be the commonsense view, but—as Edward Steichen reminds us—it is by no means universal. Dissenters note how unlike reality a photograph is and how unlikely we are to confuse the one with the other. They point to “distortions” engendered by the photographic process and to the control which the photographer exercises over the finished product, the opportunities he enjoys for interpretation and falsification. Many emphasize the expressive nature of the medium, observing (...) that photographs are inevitably colored by the photographer’s personal interests, attitudes, and prejudices.1 Whether any of these various considerations really does collide with photography’s claim of extraordinary realism depends, of course, on how that claim is to be understood.Those who find photographs especially realistic sometimes think of photography as a further advance in a direction which many picture makers have taken during the last several centuries, as a continuation or culmination of the post-Renaissance quest for realism.2 There is some truth in this. Such earlier advances toward realism include the development of perspective and modeling techniques, the portrayal of ordinary and incidental details, attention to the effects of light, and so on. From its very beginning, photography mastered perspective . Subtleties of shading, gradations of brightness nearly impossible to achieve with the brush, became commonplace. Photographs include as a matter of course the most mundane details of the scenes they portray—stray chickens, facial warts, clutters of dirty dishes. Photographic images easily can seem to be what painters striving for realism have always been after. 2. See André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” What is Cinema?, trans. Hugh Gray, vol. 1 , p. 12; all further references to this work, abbreviated “OPI,” will be included in the text. See also Rudolf Arnheim, “Melancholy Unshaped,” Toward a Psychology of Art: Collected Essays , p. 186. Kendall L. Walton is professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. He is currently completing a book on representation in the arts. (shrink)