The Photograph as Contemporary Art (World of Art) | Charlotte Cotton

The Photograph as Contemporary Art (World of Art) | Charlotte Cotton | Taught me a lot

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The Photograph as ...

	The Photograph as Contemporary Art (World of Art) Charlotte Cotton Thames & Hudson, 2004 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The first accessible guide to the key artists and uses of photography in contemporary art since the mid-1980s.

An ideal introduction to this popular subject in contemporary culture, this highly readable book surveys work by more than 150 artist-photographers: Andreas Gursky, Nan Goldin, Philip-Lorca di Corcia, Richard Billingham, Jurgen Teller, Thomas Demand, Yinka Shonibare, Thomas Ruff, Jeff Wall, Wolfgang Tillmans, and many more.

More than 200 examples of the most important works are illustrated. Themed chapters consider subjects such as narrative and storytelling in art photography, photographing the everyday and the insignificant, the use of photography in conceptual art, and the cool, detached, objective aesthetic prevalent in current art photography. 210 illustrations, 100 in color.

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A Good Survey

I am a photographer. I also live in New York City where I wander through art galleries displaying photographs with which I have a hard time coming to grips. Charlotte Cotton's book seemed to be aimed right at me.

What distinguishes a contemporary art photograph from other beautiful photographs is not always clear, but like Supreme Court Justice Stewart, I know it when I see it. From what the author suggests, it may be that contemporary art photography is less concerned with the form and more with the content, and that viewers are meant to be semiologists decoding what a photograph stands for.

Cotton begins her book with an introduction that includes a taxonomy of contemporary art photography, and to the extent that classifying an object helps us to know and understand it, the introduction alone justifies the book. Surprisingly, rather than look at style or subject matter, she organizes the book based upon the photographers' motivations and working practices. For example one of the classes is pictures of events that have been specifically organized to be photographed while another is pictures that aim to reproduce or refer back to something in the history of photography and other arts.

Each of the classes is allocated a chapter, and allocates a paragraph each to the work several artists, along with a representative photograph. Cotton explains how the photograph fits into the genre and explains something of the meaning of the work. Most of the photographs are just large enough to provide some appreciation of the work and the explanations are as concise as possible.

The book is meant to be a survey and so is more useful for providing a framework for understanding the overall categories than appreciating any individual picture. It should also be noted that the book does not cover a great deal of recent popular photography like the works of Annie Liebovitz or Art Wolfe. I expect that these photographers are seen as working in an older tradition and that they are not "post modern", again, whatever that means.

For the individual who is trying to get his arms around the direction and meaning of much of modern art photography, as well as for people who have dismissed contemporary art photography as unfathomable, this book will provide a good introduction, particularly since Cotton doesn't seem to be tied to the language of deconstruction, but rather speaks without jargon. Yet this is a field of such great variety that even if one read all of the hundreds of books listed by the author for further reading, one would have only scratched the surface.

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Taught me a lot

I learnt a lot from this book on what is happening out there in the world of photography today, boundaries are being crossed, there actually is a revolutiopn in the arts in general at the moment, which I find out to be much much more exciting than most people think, especially with photography. I happen to be a photographer myself and I strongly suggest this book to people who think they have mastered the subject and thought they had an open mind.....there is still a long way to go and loads of arenas still unexplored unlike what we used to think that it has all been done before but no, this book shows how we are still pretty much at the beginning of our adventure in this subject, we can break down a lot of our old beliefs that were gathering cob webs.

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Great product and service!

This book offers an understandable discussion of a complex subject. Recommended!

Great Book

Excellent book for anyone interested in photography. Even more beneficial when you begin to get serious about your photographs.

A Great Introduction

This book is a great introduction to understanding the world of contemporary photography. I have appreciated how the chapters are set-up as a look into the main branches of contemporary photography. If you are a photographer, it can help you discover more people who are doing work which relates to your work or inspires you. Because it has information about so many different photographers it cannot cover them all as thoroughly as one might like; however, it acts as a wonderful springboard into further research. I have found it very useful in searching for great works of photography.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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