In Photography After Frank, former New York Times writer and picture editor Philip Gefter narrates the tale of contemporary photography, beginning at the pivotal moment when Robert Frank commenced his seminal works of the 1950s. Along the way, he connects the dots of photography's evolution into what it is today, forging links between its episodes to reveal unsuspected leaps. Gefter takes Frank's The Americans as a decisive challenge to photographic objectivity, with its grainy, off-hand-seeming spontaneity and its documentation of life beyond the picket fence. Thus viewed, The Americans provides Gefter with a bridge to the phenomenon of the staged document and Postmodernism's further challenge to image fidelity. Other areas of discussion include photojournalism, the recent diversity of portraiture styles, the influence of private and corporate collections on curatorial decisions and how the market shapes art making. Throughout Photography After Frank, Gefter deftly demonstrates Frank's legacy in the work of dozens of important individual artists who followed in his wake, from Lee Friedlander and Nan Goldin to Stephen Shore and Ryan McGinley. The book includes texts written exclusively for this publication as well as essays drawn from Gefter's critical writings, reviews and even obituaries. Photography After Frank offers a page-turning approach to a subject that will appeal to students and art world aficionados alike.
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"In accesible prose, Gefter's short essays manage to trace Frank's influence from the likes of Lee Friedlander and Nan Goldin to Stephen Shore and Ryan McGinley. All along the way, he offers readers brief snippets -- many of the pieces have been taken from the Times or Aperture magazine, so they're no more than four pages -- on individual photographers and subjects like photo-realism or the market's effect on art-making." -- Valerie Palmer --Planet blog
"Insightful and intelligent, Photography after Frank is a perceptive and journalistic approach to certain contemporary issues in photography." --HotShoe Magazine
"Insightful and intelligent, Photography after Frank is a perceptive and journalistic approach to certain contemporary issues in photography." --HotShoe Magazine
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I started reading it about a week ago and have made it half way through. Though I have not completed the book, I feel as though my review won't change much once I reach the end (if I ever do).
The writer, Philip Gefter, wrote for the New York times and several other publications in his career. Each of the essays is a review that he has written in the past 8 years or so about various shows going on along with a brief history of each photographer. I went into this book looking for some great dialogue about contemporary photography and instead found a book about photography, or photographer, appreciation. It isn't that I have a problem with art appreciation books, but the way Photography After Frank was marketed made me think otherwise. Each essay is about four pages in length and is organized like this:
1: A paragraph dedicated to saying how awesome that photographer is.
2: The connection to Frank or whoever else (but there is a lot of Frank).
3: An extremely basic explanation of what the work is "about".
4: And then more about how awesome that artist is.
My main issue with this book is that it is not saying anything. There is no opinion, there is no statement or over arching theme here, it is just a retelling of the major players in photography since Robert Frank. The only reason this book should ever be picked up is by people who want to learn about the basic, and I mean BASIC, history of photography of the past 50 or so years.
This book just furthers my issue with most things going on in art right now. We need to realize that modernism is over, we have to be okay with moving on, but yet we still sit here and continue thinking about art the same way that we did when Robert Frank made The Americans!
I don't have much else to say without repeating myself on how disappointed I am with this purchase. But if you want to learn about the history of photography this will do it for you.
The writer, Philip Gefter, wrote for the New York times and several other publications in his career. Each of the essays is a review that he has written in the past 8 years or so about various shows going on along with a brief history of each photographer. I went into this book looking for some great dialogue about contemporary photography and instead found a book about photography, or photographer, appreciation. It isn't that I have a problem with art appreciation books, but the way Photography After Frank was marketed made me think otherwise. Each essay is about four pages in length and is organized like this:
1: A paragraph dedicated to saying how awesome that photographer is.
2: The connection to Frank or whoever else (but there is a lot of Frank).
3: An extremely basic explanation of what the work is "about".
4: And then more about how awesome that artist is.
My main issue with this book is that it is not saying anything. There is no opinion, there is no statement or over arching theme here, it is just a retelling of the major players in photography since Robert Frank. The only reason this book should ever be picked up is by people who want to learn about the basic, and I mean BASIC, history of photography of the past 50 or so years.
This book just furthers my issue with most things going on in art right now. We need to realize that modernism is over, we have to be okay with moving on, but yet we still sit here and continue thinking about art the same way that we did when Robert Frank made The Americans!
I don't have much else to say without repeating myself on how disappointed I am with this purchase. But if you want to learn about the history of photography this will do it for you.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Markal
Format:Paperback
To be even-handed at the outset, I must state that there are a number of things which recommend this book. Gefter is familiar with contemporary photography and is able to convey a good sense of his essay subjects in a page or two, the length of most of the essays in this collection. There is a wide range of photographers included and unless you are well versed in modern photography you will learn quite a lot. Gefter's prose is not always artful but the essays are information dense and filled with interesting anecdotes and quotes, what one expects from newspaper photography writing (these essays are mostly from Gefter's writings for The New York Times). However, a major sin of this book is that the contents are not at all an examination of contemporary photography practice in relation to Robert Frank, despite the book's title and claims on the back jacket such as "throughout the book, Gefter seamlessly interweaves Frank's legacy with the work of dozens of important artists who have followed in his wake...". In fact, that claim is simply a blatant untruth: after the three and one-half page introduction, intended to be an examination of "...Frank's challenge to photography's formal objectivity with the grainy, off-handed spontaneity of The Americans," Frank and his work is mentioned only in passing and in only a handful of the 40-plus essays in the book. Despite the value of Gefter's essays in and of themselves, this book is a case of misleading marketing and Aperture should be deeply ashamed of themselves for this deceit and Gefter as well for allowing his collection of essays to be presented as something they are not.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There are photography technique books, and portfolio books, and books of critiques and even philosophy and theory of photography. All of them are probably interesting to someone and occasionally quite challenging. But sometimes a person interested in photography wants to read something light and accessible with little anecdotes, and if I can say it without being insulting, just veg out. Here's the book for that time.
The book is a collection of short essays (mostly newspaper articles) by Philip Gefter about photography covering everything from reviews of show openings to obituaries of photographers, as well as some new introductory material prepared for the book and an interview with Gefter by Veronique Vienne. Gefter served for several years as the picture editor for the front page of the New York Times. (Who knew "the gray lady" was so serious about photography that it even had such a position?) The sections of the book are called the document; the staged document; photojournalism; the portrait; the collection; and the marketplace. The essays are chatty and often contain tidbits about the world of photography that I had not encountered but found interesting.
The title may be a little misleading. One might think that it would show how the elements of Robert Frank's style that made such an impact with the publication of "The Americans" shaped photography. While the author does occasionally refer to Frank in the essays, it is not to emphasize his role or how other photographers built on his style. Instead the publication date of "The Americans" serves as a kind of marker for the period that the essays cover.
The essays cover a broad view of the photography scene, even going as far as to discuss how the painter Eric Fischl uses photography in his painting, not to copy from, but rather to provide a vocabulary to examine the world. On the other hand while Gefter notes the arrival of Ryan McGinley on the photography scene as a rising star, there was little in his essay on the photographer to help me understand why McGinley's pictures of leaping naked young people were worth my attention. There are 47 pages in the plates section that contain enough photographs to show an accurate exploration of the history of photography beginning with Frank.
Some articles are quite mundane, like the obituary of Cornell Capa, who founded the International Center for Photography, which essentially is a "then he did X" article. Sometimes the articles are mind-provoking like the article that suggests that many news photographs can't stand alone as images, but can tell a significant story with just a short caption.
Folks who are interested in some light but interesting reading about photography should enjoy this book.
The book is a collection of short essays (mostly newspaper articles) by Philip Gefter about photography covering everything from reviews of show openings to obituaries of photographers, as well as some new introductory material prepared for the book and an interview with Gefter by Veronique Vienne. Gefter served for several years as the picture editor for the front page of the New York Times. (Who knew "the gray lady" was so serious about photography that it even had such a position?) The sections of the book are called the document; the staged document; photojournalism; the portrait; the collection; and the marketplace. The essays are chatty and often contain tidbits about the world of photography that I had not encountered but found interesting.
The title may be a little misleading. One might think that it would show how the elements of Robert Frank's style that made such an impact with the publication of "The Americans" shaped photography. While the author does occasionally refer to Frank in the essays, it is not to emphasize his role or how other photographers built on his style. Instead the publication date of "The Americans" serves as a kind of marker for the period that the essays cover.
The essays cover a broad view of the photography scene, even going as far as to discuss how the painter Eric Fischl uses photography in his painting, not to copy from, but rather to provide a vocabulary to examine the world. On the other hand while Gefter notes the arrival of Ryan McGinley on the photography scene as a rising star, there was little in his essay on the photographer to help me understand why McGinley's pictures of leaping naked young people were worth my attention. There are 47 pages in the plates section that contain enough photographs to show an accurate exploration of the history of photography beginning with Frank.
Some articles are quite mundane, like the obituary of Cornell Capa, who founded the International Center for Photography, which essentially is a "then he did X" article. Sometimes the articles are mind-provoking like the article that suggests that many news photographs can't stand alone as images, but can tell a significant story with just a short caption.
Folks who are interested in some light but interesting reading about photography should enjoy this book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Things that happened after Frank
I don't buy the supposed connection between Frank and some of the photographers covered in this book. Avedon and Mapplethorpe? Pics are too small. Read more
Published on October 7, 2010 by HWJ3
1.0 out of 5 stars
Save your money and buy film.
Mr. Gefter has a tenuous grasp on photographic history at best, and, at worst, comes across as hawking for the publishing company Aperture.
Published on April 10, 2010 by M. Morris
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Photgography Essays
For us photography nuts this is must have. This collection of essays on artists and other photo subjects is a delightful and valuable read.
Published on January 21, 2010 by David Sovulewski
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential Reading
[...]
When people ask me what they need to do to understand the world of fine art photography, I tell them: go to galleries, preview auctions, and read the photography... Read more
When people ask me what they need to do to understand the world of fine art photography, I tell them: go to galleries, preview auctions, and read the photography... Read more
Published on July 14, 2009 by James Danziger
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Photography After Frank"
I highly recommend "Photography After Frank". It gave me a really good grasp of the landscape of contemporary photography by tracing its roots back to Robert Frank. Read more
Published on July 14, 2009 by Jane Muir
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