The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography [Paperback]

Richard Bolton (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0262521695 | ISBN-13: 978-0262521697

Photography's great success gives the impression that the major questions that have haunted the medium are now resolved. On the contrary - the most important questions about photography are just beginning to be asked. These fourteen essays, with over 200 illustrations, critically examine prevailing beliefs about the medium and suggest new ways to explain the history of photography. They are organized around the questions: What are the social consequences of aesthetic practice? How does photography construct sexual difference? How is photography used to promote class and national interests? What are the politics of photographic truth?The Contest of Meaning summarizes the challenges to traditional photographic history that have developed in the last decade out of a consciously political critique of photographic production. Contributions by a wide range of important Americans critics reexamine the complex - and often contradictory - roles of photography within society.Douglas Crimp, Christopher Phillips, Benjamin Buchloh, and Abigail Solomon Godeau examine the gradually developed exclusivity of art photography and describe the politics of canon formation throughout modernism. Catherine Lord, Deborah Bright, Sally Stein, and Jan Zita Grover examine the ways in which the female is configured as a subject, and explain how sexual difference is constructed across various registers of photographic representation.Carol Squiers, Esther Parada, and Richard Bolton clarify the ways in which photography serves as a form of mass communication, demonstrating in particular how photographic production is affected by the interests of the powerful patrons of communications. The three concluding essays, by Rosalind Krauss, Martha Rosler, and Allan Sekula, critically examine the concept of photographic truth by exploring the intentions informing various uses of "objective" images within society.Richard Bolton is an artist and writer who has exhibited and published widely. He has taught in the Visible Language Workshop at MIT's Media Laboratory and at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Editor Bolton has assembled 14 essays offering an alternate approach to the popular vein of post-modernist theory that suggests the understanding of form is ahistorical, i.e., not dependent on context. The book is organized around four questions: "What Are the Social Consequences of Aesthetic Practice?"; "How Does Photography Construct Sexual Difference?"; "How Is Photography Used To Promote Class and National Interests?"; and "What Are the Politics of Photographic Truth?" Essayists such as Rosalind Krauss, Allen Sekula, and Douglas Crimp aim to "repoliticize" the history of the medium, which they feel has been "neutralized" by formalist definition. Building on the dialectical approach of Critical Theorists, "these writers develop an understanding of meaning as a contest created out of opposition and negotiation." Fascinating and very well illustrated but rather heady. Essential for academic photography collections.
- Kathy J. Anderson, Onondaga Cty. P.L., N.Y.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Eminently readable, the critical essays collected here interrogate our limited understanding of so called art photography, by unmasking the ideological and political realities that have shaped both its production and interpretation." Anthony Aziz , SF Camerawork

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Product Details

• Paperback: 427 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (February 25, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262521695
• ISBN-13: 978-0262521697
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 7.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #703,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ouch, but Ahhh., November 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography (Paperback)

This book makes my brain hurt, but in a good way. Some of the essays are pretty tough to read as they are very deeply rooted in the world of art historical criticism, but don't let that stop you from getting this book; you'll learn a lot and come away with some good insights into the subject of photography and the history of photography. It would be very helpful to get a companion book that contains some of the artists and works that are discussed here, so you have the images to look at and non-critical, historical looks at the artists for background and context. Something like Beumont Newhall's "History of Photography" would be an excellent match.