Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975--2001 (October Books) [Hardcover]

Martha Rosler (Author)

Book Description

Series: October Books | Publication Date: August 27, 2004

Decoys and Disruptions is the first comprehensive collection of writings by American artist and critic Martha Rosler. Best known for her videos and photography, Rosler has also been an original and influential cultural critic and theorist for over twenty-five years. The writings collected here address such key topics as documentary photography, feminist art, video, government patronage of the arts, censorship, and the future of digitally based photographic media. Taken together, these thirteen essays not only show Rosler's importance as a critic but also offer an essential resource for readers interested in the issues confronting contemporary art. The essays in this collection illustrate Rosler's ongoing investigation into means of exposing truth and provoking change, providing a retrospective of characteristic issues in her work.Mixing analysis and wit, Rosler challenges many of the fundamental precepts of contemporary art practice. Her influential essay "In, around, and afterthoughts: on documentary photography" almost single-handedly dismantled the myth of liberal documentary photography when it appeared. Many of the essays in this volume have had a similarly wide-ranging influence; others are published here for the first time. Illustrating the essays are 81 images by Rosler and other artists and photographers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Text has always played a major role in the work of visual artist Rosler, whose photographs and other documentary-based art often contain caption or even essay-like elements. This book selects among Rosler’s explicitly critical and polemical interventions, from a manifesto "For an Art Against the Mythology of Everyday Life" to "Place, Position, Power, Politics." Rosler’s writing is as direct and nuanced as her work, which makes up a large proportion of the 64 b&w illustrations here, reinforcing and expanding on points made by the book’s 14 essays. She engages practice-based questions ("How might artists and other cultural workers abrogate the gospel of genius, isolation and formalist concerns?") and does critical summings-up of what has come before ("Feminists made it their business to show ‘weakness’, ‘lack’ and ‘exclusion’ not only as imposed but also as remediable"). She engages the work of scores of photographers in passing and in depth (as in the piece "Leo Friedlander, an Exemplary Modern Photographer") in touching on a host of issues, most urgently the truth claims made for photographs and the changing status of documentary photography over the last century. For anyone who left Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others wanting more, this compendium of a quarter-century’s work is a terrific place to start.
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Review

"For many years, and almost single-handedly, Martha Rosler has provided a solid theoretical basis for critical studies in photography and video. This collection of her lucid essays is a useful compilation of her most important theoretical work. Seeing the essays (and a fascinating collection of photographs) together in this book, one is struck by the depth of her work: a unique blend of insight as critical clarity and art as idea." DeeDee Halleck, independent film maker and Professor Emeritus of Communications, University of California, San Diego

"For many years, and almost singlehandedly, Martha Rosler has provided a solid theoretical basis for critical studies in photography and video. This collection of her lucid essays is a useful compilation of her most important theoretical work. Seeing the essays (and a fascinating collection of photographs) together in this book, one is struck by the depth of her work: a unique blend of insight as critical clarity and art as idea."--DeeDee Halleck, independent film maker, and Professor Emeritus of Communications, University of California, San Diego

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 402 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; First Edition edition (August 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262182319
• ISBN-13: 978-0262182317
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,399,347 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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