219037-Archivo Universal Ingles

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

219037-Archivo Universal Ingles introduction Jorge Ribalta The Discursive Space of the Exhibition In the early 1980s, the debate on the discursive spaces of photography and, particularly, on the conflictive inclusion of photographs into the art museum was a crucial issue for the new art criticism and historiography, labelled as postmodernist. For that Frankfurt School influenced criticism (attempting to further and to radicalise the project of a social and cultural historiography of art and photography, of art after photography) it was essential the production of a new historiography not based on authors, pictures or form, but rather on the relevant debates, the means of circu- lation and the public visibility of images; in other words, the genealogy of a specific cultural public sphere determined by photography: a photo- graphic public sphere. During the Cold War, this cultural historiography had been set aside within an artistic discourse dominated by formalism and humanism; it would not surface until the 1970s, in the context of the emergence of the post-68 new social movements. Indeed, it was precisely this problematic inclusion of photography into modern art institutions – due, largely, to photography’s ‘documentary’, mechanical and archival nature, which meant that it had been put to the service of sciences and arts – that made photography crucial to the new criticism. This was so to such an extent that, as Craig Owens pointed out, the new criticism itself was identified with ‘the photographic’.1 The his- toricisation of the visibility of photography in the modernist exhibi- tionary complex became, at that moment, an emerging field, indeed a spearhead, for discourses that attempted to go beyond the formalist par- adigm of modernism. Because photography is archival, industrial and 1. Craig Owens: ‘the discourse in terms of its multiple copies: Craig Owens’, in Craig Owens, in the art world was identified no reflection of originality on the Beyond Recognition. with the photographic…. I mean original, timed with the “death of Representation, Power and Culture the notion of the photographic as the author”, the mechanisation (Berkeley, Ca.: University of opposed to photography per se, of image production’, in Anders California Press, 1992), p 300. theorisation of the photographic Stephanson, ‘Interview with 11 jorge ribalta related to the mass media, it could not be assimilated to modernist notions of autonomous visuality. In this context of the early 1980s, the terms of the debate on photography in the exhibition space were laid out in three seminal essays: Rosalind Krauss’s Photography’s Discursive Spaces,2 Christopher Phillips’s The Judg- ment Seat of Photography3 (both published in 1982), and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh’s From Faktura to Factography (published in 1984).4 Though very different from one another, these texts, along with a few others by Douglas Crimp and Allan Sekula,5 are an inevitable point of departure for any study of the public visibility of photography in the institutional exhibition space. The study of photographic exhibitions was relevant to the critique of modernism insofar as it showed the exhibition space to be a specific realm for the production of artistic autonomy. By no means free of ideology, the exhibition space was a key means to constructing the bourgeois public sphere – based on myths such as authorship and originality. The work of these critics was a reaction to the quick institutionalisation and aestheti- sation of photography, and its widespread appearance on the art market taking place precisely at that moment. At the end of her aforementioned essay, Rosalind Krauss stated that: ‘everywhere at present there is an attempt to dismantle the photographic archive – the set of practices, institutions, and relationships to which nineteenth-century photography originally belonged – and to reassemble it within the categories previous- ly constituted by art and its history.’6 In a context of regressive discursive practices that often erased the his- tory of the debates on the social function of art (specifically, the inscription of photography into modern art debates), the genealogical or archaeolog- ical study of the exhibition of photography in modernism was one of the primary fronts for the cultural struggles of the 1980s. It was also a crucial form of resistance to the emerging effects of neo-liberalism in the artistic 2. Originally published in Art Labour and Capital’, in Benjamin to Style’, Afterimage, vol. 10, Journal, no. XLII (Winter 1982). H. D.Buchloh and Robert Wilkie, no. 6 (January 1983). 3. Originally published in eds., Mining Photographs and 6. Rosalind Krauss, October, no. 22 (Autumn 1982). Other Pictures 1948‒1968 ‘Photography’s Discursive 4. Originally published in (Halifax: The Press of the Nova Spaces’, originally published in October, no. 30 (Autumn 1984) Scotia College of Art and Design, Art Journal, vol. XLII (Winter [see pp 29–61 of this volume]. 1983), and ‘Traffic in 1982); reprinted in Rosalind 5. Particularly texts by Douglas Photographs’, Art Journal, vol. Krauss, The Originality of the Crimp, ‘The Museum’s Old, the 41, no. I (Spring 1981). Also rele- Avant-garde and Other Modernist Library’s New Subject’, original- vant are several texts by Abigail Myths (Cambridge, Mass.: ly published in Parachute, no. 22 Solomon-Godeau, including The MIT Press, 1985), p 150. (Spring 1981), and by Allan ‘The Armed Vision Disarmed: Sekula, ‘Photography Between Radical Formalism from Weapon 12 introduction sphere, whose symptoms included the return to painting, the revitalisa- tion of the market as a cornerstone of artistic debates and the depolitici- sation of the art scene. While Krauss and Phillips assessed the modernist museum’s assimila- tion of photography in their texts, Buchloh reconstructed the course of El Lissitzky’s exhibition paradigms from the late 1920s during the Soviet debates on superseding bourgeois artistic autonomy and the experiences of productivism, that is of an art subsumed in industrial production, the mass media and State propaganda. He critically formulated how the artis- tic paradigms that arose from the Soviet Revolution – from the particular interconnection between the artistic avant-garde and the political avant- garde that occurred in that context – were the true engines of twentieth- century modern art. This was the case, he maintained, despite the fact that the historical account of the Soviet experiences of the 1920s had been largely obscured and repressed for a number of reasons, including the recomposition of cultural geopolitics during the Cold War. Even today, that essay by Buchloh, the critic who most incisively con- demned the regressive nature of mainstream art from the early 1980s,7 is a milestone in studies on the relationship between the photographic doc- ument, the avant-garde and propaganda; it made way for a new approach to the study of the Soviet avant-garde. The same year Buchloh’s pub- lished From Faktura to Factography, he also wrote an essay on the contem- porary work of Allan Sekula and Fred Lonidier discussing the current relevance of the Soviet debates from the 1920s in terms of the photo- graphic practices of the 1980s. That text connected the new photograph- ic documentary practices, embodied by those two artists, with Soviet fac- tography and the classic debates on realism, and examined the potential for resistance and opposition still inherent to art.8 Document, Persuasion, Propaganda Before turning to what concerns us here – mainly, tracing the evolution of a certain dynamic conception introduced by El Lissitzky of the exhibition space on the basis of the use of photography – it is necessary to briefly 7. See particularly the essay (Spring 1981), pp 39‒68. Ideology (New York: The New ‘Figures of Authority, Ciphers of 8. ‘Since Realism There Was… Museum of Contemporary Art, Regression. Notes on the Return (On the Current Conditions of 1984). of Representation in European Factographic Art)’, in the cata- Painting’, in October, no. 16 logue of the exhibition Art and 13 jorge ribalta review some of the conditions of the photographic document as a tech- nology of visual persuasion. In his classic study of American documentary culture in the 1930s, William Stott describes social documentary as a genre geared towards persuasion and towards educating the public on what should change. As such, that genre aimed to produce social effects; it was propagandistic, even in a culture and era that rejected propaganda: ‘Though the people of the time hated the idea of propaganda, propaganda was in fact their common mode of expression.’9 The premise for the persuasive or propagandistic nature of the social documentary is the ideology of photography as a universal language. This idea goes back to nineteenth-century pioneers of photographic criticism, like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Francis Wey, and extends to twentieth- century authors, from the reformist Lewis Hine working at the beginning of the century, to André Malraux and his post-war musée imaginaire constituted of photographic reproductions. It also includes Soviet and German critics working in the 1920s and 1930s. In a context dominated by the positivist philosophy that underlays the ideology of the modern capi- talist (that is, liberal-industrial-colonial) State, photography promises a utopian means of universal communication, a sort of ‘pre-linguistic lan- guage’ unhindered by social and cultural differences (at least starting with the introduction of the positive-negative methods around 1850 and thus with the possibility
Recommended publications
  • FIAP Yearbooks of Photography, 1954–1960 Alise Tifentale, The
    The “Cosmopolitan Art”: FIAP Yearbooks of Photography, 1954–1960 Alise Tifentale, The Graduate Center, City University of New York [Research paper presented at the CAA 2017 in New York City, February 17, 2017, at the session “Photography in Print.”] “It is a diversified, yet tempered picture book containing surprises on every page, a mirror to pulsating life, a rich fragment of cosmopolitan art, a pleasure ground of phantasy”—this is how, in March 1956, the editorial board of Camera magazine introduced the latest photography yearbook by the International Federation of Photographic Art (Fédération internationale de l'art photographique, FIAP). By examining the first four FIAP Yearbooks, published between 1954 and 1960 on a biennial basis,1 this paper aims to reconstruct some of the ideals behind the work of FIAP and to understand the “cosmopolitan art” of photography promoted by this organization. FIAP, a non-governmental and transnational association, was founded in Switzerland in 1950 and aimed at uniting the world’s photographers. It consisted of national associations of photographers, representing 55 countries: seventeen in Western Europe, thirteen in Asia, ten in Latin America, six in Eastern Europe, four in Middle East, three in Africa, one in North America, and Australia. As with many non-governmental organizations established around 1950, its membership was global, but the founders and leaders were based in Western Europe— Belgium, Switzerland, France, and West Germany. FIAP epitomized the postwar idealism which it shared with organizations such as UN or UNESCO. “The black and white art (..) through its truthfulness also stimulates one to 1 Three more FIAP yearbooks were published in 1962, 1964, and 1966.
    [Show full text]
  • El Lissitzky Letters and Photographs, 1911-1941
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6r29n84d No online items Finding aid for the El Lissitzky letters and photographs, 1911-1941 Finding aid prepared by Carl Wuellner. Finding aid for the El Lissitzky 950076 1 letters and photographs, 1911-1941 ... Descriptive Summary Title: El Lissitzky letters and photographs Date (inclusive): 1911-1941 Number: 950076 Creator/Collector: Lissitzky, El, 1890-1941 Physical Description: 1.0 linear feet(3 boxes) Repository: The Getty Research Institute Special Collections 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100 Los Angeles, California, 90049-1688 (310) 440-7390 Abstract: The El Lissitzky letters and photographs collection consists of 106 letters sent, most by Lissitzky to his wife, Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, along with his personal notes on art and aesthetics, a few official and personal documents, and approximately 165 documentary photographs and printed reproductions of his art and architectural designs, and in particular, his exhibition designs. Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy . Language: Collection material is in German Biographical/Historial Note El Lissitzky (1890-1941) began his artistic education in 1909, when he traveled to Germany to study architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt. Lissitzky returned to Russia in 1914, continuing his studies in Moscow where he attended the Riga Polytechnical Institute. After the Revolution, Lissitzky became very active in Jewish cultural activities, creating a series of inventive illustrations for books with Jewish themes. These formed some of his earliest experiments in typography, a key area of artistic activity that would occupy him for the remainder of his life.
    [Show full text]
  • An Exhibition of B&W Argentic Photographs by Olivier Meyer
    An exhibition of b&w argentic photographs by Olivier Meyer Location Gonville & Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge Exhibition 29 & 30 September 2018 10 am—5 pm Contact [email protected] Avenue du Président Wilson. 1987 Olivier Meyer, photographer Olivier Meyer is a contemporary French photographer born in 1957. He lives and works in Paris, France. His photo-journalism was first published in France-Soir Magazine and subsequently in the daily France-Soir in 1981. Starting from 1989, a selection of his black and white photographs of Paris were produced as postcards by Éditions Marion Valentine. He often met the photographer Édouard Boubat on the île Saint-Louis in Paris and at the Publimod laboratory in the rue du Roi de Sicile. Having seen his photographs, Boubat told him: “at the end of the day, we are all doing the same thing...” When featured in the magazine Le Monde 2 in 2007 his work was noticed by gallery owner Charles Zalber who exhibited his photographs at the gallery Photo4 managed by Victor Mendès. Work His work is in the tradition of humanist photography and Street photography, using the same material as many of the forerunners of this style: Kodak Tri-X black and white film, silver bromide prints on baryta paper, Leica M3 or Leica M4 with a 50 or 90 mm lens. The thin black line surrounding the prints shows that the picture has not been cropped. His inspiration came from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Édouard Boubat, Saul Leiter. His portrait of Aguigui Mouna sticking his tongue out like Albert Einstein, published in postcard form in 1988, and subsequently as an illustration in a book by Anne Gallois served as a blueprint for a stencil work by the artist Jef Aérosol in 2006 subsequently reproduced in the book VIP.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Introduction The PRESSA opened its doors in Cologne on 12 May 1928. To this day, this international press exhibition, deemed by contemporaries to be the “world’s first look at the press” is unrivalled in size and importance. By the time the last ticket had been sold that October, more than five million visitors from Ger- many and around the world had taken in the facilities, halls and pavilions on the Deutzer banks of the Rhine, all of which had required an unprecedented degree of time and effort to build. They were able to admire the press exhibits and cultural presentations of the many participating nations (including the members of the League of Nations), attend the exhibition’s many informative and entertaining events and see the numerous tourist attractions in and around the host city and along the Rhine. Despite its contemporary and media-historical significance, the PRESSA has, in retrospect, hardly been studied. One might even say that it has been for- gotten. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of its inauguration, an interna- tional interdisciplinary conference was therefore organised by the Centre for European and International Studies Research at the University of Portsmouth, the Institute of “Deutsche Presseforschung” at the University of Bremen and the Bremen Society for German Press Research in order to come to terms with the PRESSA’s significance. Along with presentations on the preparation and implementation of the exhibition and its political and artistic implications, the conference also dealt with the appearance of the German-Jewish press at the PRESSA. For the first time this press had the chance to present itself, in its own pavilion no less, as part of the general press to a wider public.
    [Show full text]
  • Checklist of the Exhibition Checklist of the Exhibition Note: All Objects Are
    Checklist of the exhibition Note: All objects are from the collections of the Getty Research Institute, unless otherwise noted. When “photograph” is listed as the medium, the item is a documentary photograph of an original design or artwork. Futurist Beginnings 1. El Lissitzky Cover of Solntse na izlete (Spent sun) Poems by Konstantin Bolshakov Moscow: Tsentrifuga, 1916 88-B24323 2. Natalia Goncharova Cover of Vtoroi sbornik Tsentrifugi (Second Centrifuge collection) Poems by eleven authors Moscow: Tsentrifuga, 1916 90-B4642 3. Natalia Goncharova Cover of Serdtse v perchatke (Heart in a glove) Poems by Konstantin Bolshakov Moscow: Mezonin poezii, 1913 88-B24316 4. Natalia Goncharova Cover of Vetrogradari nad lozami (Gardeners on the vines) Poems by Sergei Bobrov Moscow: Lirika, 1913 88-B24275 1 4a. Natalia Goncharova Pages from Vetrogradari nad lozami (Gardeners on the vines) Poems by Sergei Bobrov Moscow: Lirika, 1913 88-B24275 Yiddish Book Design 5. El Lissitzky Dust jacket from Had gadya (One goat) Children’s illustrated book based on the Jewish Passover song Kiev: Kultur Lige, 1919 1392-150 6a. El Lissitzky Cover of Had gadya (One goat) Children’s illustrated book based on the Jewish Passover song Kiev: Kultur Lige, 1919 1392-150 6b. El Lissitzky Page from Had gadya (One goat) Children’s illustrated book based on the Jewish Passover song Kiev: Kultur Lige, 1919 1392-150 7. El Lissitzky Cover of Sihas hulin: Eyne fun di geshikhten (An everyday conversation: A story) Tale by Moses Broderson Moscow: Ferlag Chaver, 1917 93-B15342 8. El Lissitzky Frontispiece from deluxe edition of Sihas hulin: Eyne fun di geshikhten (An everyday conversation: A story) Tale by Moses Broderson Moscow: Shamir, 1917 93-B15342 2 9.
    [Show full text]
  • International Exhibitions, Expositions Universelles and World's Fairs, 1851-2005: a Bibliography
    Freie Universität Berlin, Germany California State University, Fresno, USA International Exhibitions, Expositions Universelles and World’s Fairs, 1851-2005: A Bibliography by Alexander C.T. Geppert, Jean Coffey and Tammy Lau 1. Introduction _________________________________________________________ 5 2. Research Aids ______________________________________________________ 7 2.1 Research Aids General _________________________________________________7 2.2 Bibliographies ________________________________________________________8 2.3 Review Articles ______________________________________________________10 2.4 Journals and Newsletters ______________________________________________10 3. History and Theory of International Exhibitions: General Works _______________ 11 3.1 Official Exhibition Regulations ___________________________________________11 3.2 Exhibition Theory _____________________________________________________11 3.3 Exhibition History _____________________________________________________13 4. International Exhibitions, 1851-2005 ____________________________________ 28 4.1 Australia ____________________________________________________________28 4.1.0 Australia Genera l _____________________________________________28 4.1.1 International Exhibition, Sydney 1879-1880 _________________________28 4.1.2 International Exhibition, Melbourne 1880-1881 ______________________28 4.1.3 Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne 1888-1889 _____________28 4.1.4 Expo 88, Brisbane 1988 ________________________________________28 4.2 Austria _____________________________________________________________28
    [Show full text]
  • The Photographer Sabine Weiss Chooses the Musée De L'elysée To
    The photographer Sabine Weiss chooses the Musée de l’Elysée to preserve her work and archives Announcement of June 12, 2017 Elysée Lausanne Press release Press release 12.06.2017 Elysée Lausanne 2/6 Sabine Weiss has entrusted her photographic work, the achievement of a lifetime, to the Musée de l’Elysée. The archives of the photographer, born in Switzerland in 1924, will integrate the Musée de l’Elysée’s collections as soon as it moves to PLATEFORME 10, by 2021. This donation was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Canton of Vaud through the SERAC. Sabine Weiss chose the Musée de l’Elysée, a Swiss public institution with solid expertise in the management of photographic heritage, to preserve and showcase her work and to make it available to a broad audience. "The donation of an archive of the content and scope of that of Sabine Weiss is a significant step in the strategy of the museum, which is based in particular on its expertise in the valorization of complete collections of Swiss and international photographers. It resonates with travel photography, which is very present in the collections, and other important names of women photographers like Ella Maillart, Gertrud Fehr, Henriette Grindat and Monique Jacot", underlines Tatyana Franck, Director. At PLATEFORME 10, the Musée de l’Elysée will benefit from extensive conservation and storage spaces, as well as modular exhibition spaces designed to regularly host projects to showcase its collections. A life devoted to photography Sabine Weiss is one of the great names in European photography. Born Sabine Weber in 1924 in Saint-Gingolph, the Swiss-born photographer did her apprenticeship with Paul Boissonnas in Geneva, before moving to Paris in 1946 where she was the assistant of Willy Maywald for four years.
    [Show full text]
  • Herbert Bayer's Exhibition Catalogue for the 1930 Section Allemande
    $UFKLWHFWXUDO Miller, W 2017 Points of View: Herbert Bayer’s Exhibition Catalogue for the 1930 Section Allemande. Architectural Histories, 5(1): 1, +LVWRULHV pp. 1–22, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ah.221 RESEARCH ARTICLE Points of View: Herbert Bayer’s Exhibition Catalogue for the 1930 Section Allemande Wallis Miller Sigfried Giedion called Herbert Bayer’s exhibition catalogue for the 1930 Section Allemande a “minor typographical masterpiece.” Like similar catalogues, it is inexpensive, provides an inventory list, has an introduction, functions as a guide, and is illustrated. However, the majority of its images are of instal- lations, not their contents. Bayer accommodates the catalogue type for applied arts exhibitions by list- ing installations as objects, but he confronts the type by showing installations as display contexts that establish points of view, emulating, idealizing and interpreting the experience of the exhibition. By inde- pendently constructing ways of seeing and understanding the exhibition, the catalogue resists being an appendage to the exhibition, despite their close relationship. Giedion may have viewed Bayer’s catalogue as an important but secondary work of graphic design, but this article argues that it is of primary signifi- cance as an exhibition catalogue, an unusual essay on the book typology that is conscious of its history while moving outside — to other types of book design and to exhibitions — to transform it. Introduction In the summer of 1930, crowds filled Paris’s Grand Palais to capacity. The people were heading to the Section Alle- mande (German Section), the German Werkbund’s exhibi- tion at the annual Salon of the Société des Artistes Déco- rateurs (Society of Decorative Artists).
    [Show full text]
  • Exposition Architecture
    Exposition architecture Date 1936 Publisher The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2095 The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history— from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists. MoMA © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art The Bulletin of The Museum of Modern Art A view of the Stockholm Exposition, 1930, designed by Cunnar Asplund. Exposition Arehiteeture 3 Volume 4 January 1036 Exposition Architecture Expositions, like skyscrapers, dramatize architecture for the general public. Hence they have an influence upon architectural history far greater than their intrinsic importance. Their particular atmosphere of holiday and ballyhoo, their very transience, indeed, appeal to the imagination of a wide public which is otherwise rarely stirred by any ideas of architecture at all. Real innovations of structure or design seldom make their first appearance in expositions. But World's Fairs are sounding boards for ideas, both good and bad, which have already taken solid form under more obscure conditions. At the first World's Fair, the Great Exposition of 1851 in London, the English saw a building of whose like few had ever dreamed. Technically Pax- ton's Crystal Palace was no more than an enlargement of the Palm House at Chatsworth which he had designed over a decade earlier. Yet visitors to the Crystal Palace saw a vision of buildings all of metal and glass—a vision which the architects and engineers of the time were incapable of realizing on any general scale.
    [Show full text]
  • Is a Landmark Publication That Encompasses the History, Art and Science of Photography in a Single Volume
    The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Photography is a landmark publication that encompasses the history, art and science of photography in a single volume. At a time when information is instantly accessible on the internet but is often of doubtful reliability or provenance, this ambitious project both reasserts the veracity, reliability and accuracy of scholarly research in reference publishing and celebrates the pleasure and immersive experience offered by refined, elegant book design. Compiled under the editorial guidance of Nathalie Herschdorfer and in consultation with an international panel of 150 experts, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Photography is based on entirely fresh scholarship by seventy-nine researchers from sixteen countries. The culmination of nearly ten years of development and research, this is the new, relevant and truly definitive reference to photography. Key features Specification Over 1,200 concise yet fully detailed entries on all Casebound with jacket aspects of the subject, including photographers, images, 30.7 × 20.2 cm agencies, genres, movements, exhibitions, publications, (12⅛ × 8 in.) collectors, techniques and processes. 448 pages c. 300 illustrations, A comprehensive reference to over 180 years of photographic history. Truly authoritative and based on c. 60 in colour fresh scholarship. Illustrated throughout with over 300 images showing key works, artist portraits, exhibitions, installations, publications and technical diagrams. A book that offers an immersive experience, combining a clear presentation with the very best in modern yet timeless typographic design. The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Photography – Information Pack 1 Over a decade in the making Fresh scholarship and clarity of writing The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Photography Following the consultation and peer-review process represents over a decade of careful consideration, and the finalizing of the list of entries, a team of development and scholarship.
    [Show full text]
  • Photography and Sociology: an Exercise in Serendipity
    Eldridge, Alison (2015) Photography and sociology: an exercise in serendipity. PhD thesis. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/7392/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIOLOGY: AN EXERCISE IN SERENDIPITY Alison Eldridge Submission for PhD (by research) University of Glasgow History of Art June 2015 c. Alison Eldridge June 2015 1 TABL E OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Photography and Sociology: An exercise in serendipity.................6 Introduction.....................................................................................7 Bourdieu in Algeria.........................................................................10 Photography and Sociology: Bourdieu’s contribution....................16 Photography: Why a Middle-Brow Art? ......................................26 Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’: Values and Limitations...................31 The Field of Photographic Production............................................35 Why War?
    [Show full text]
  • Nir Avissar University of Virginia July, 2016
    PHOTOACTIVISM: POLITICAL ICONOGRAPHY IN FRANCE, 1944-1968 Nir Avissar Tel Aviv, Israel Master of Arts, Tel Aviv University, 2008 Bachelor of Arts. Tel Aviv University, 2005 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Virginia July, 2016 © 2016 Nir Avissar Abstract The aim of this dissertation is to provide a critical history of French reportage photography in the decades following the Second World War, beginning with the Liberation in 1944 and ending in May ’68. During the Trente Glorieuses, reportage photography became an integral part of the media, which operated as the central platform for engaging the public in political discourse. My research explores how, during this era of mass communication, the photographic medium participated in the nation’s political life in concrete historical circumstances. In the course of this investigation, I inspect both the material, thematic, and formal strategies photographers employed to produce images in different political contexts, and the publication history of their works (who published their images, in what format, and for what purposes). The dissertation thus examines the role reportage photography played in promoting political discourse in France by visually engaging the most critical historical processes the nation was undergoing: modernization, democratization, and decolonization. At the same time, it also analyzes the reciprocal impact that changing political climate had on reportage photography. Specifically, it provides an historical account of the multiple causes that effected during the 1960s the displacement of humanist photography by photojournalism as the medium’s prominent current.
    [Show full text]