Synopsis
Spanning 170 years, from William Henry Fox Talbot's first negative to Jeff Wall's latest constructed tableau, Singular Images collects thought-provoking essays on individual photographs, one image per writer. The essayists consider, sometimes in highly personal ways, the artist's intention, their own response, the work's technical complexities, its historical context or its formal properties. Each text captures a sense of how challenging it is to create a perfect single piece. Art photography has been increasingly well-surveyed in recent years, but individual works have rarely been written about at length, perhaps because of lingering doubt that a single photograph can command the kind of sustained attention often given to individual paintings or sculptures. Singular Images is a lively inquiry into the value of analyzing individual photographs, and it persuasively encourages the reader to engage at length and in depth with one remarkable piece at a time. With its broad scope and diverse range of issues, it can also be read as an informal--and thoroughly entertaining--introduction to art photography. Featuring essays by some of the most brilliant critical minds in the field, including David Campany on Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, Darsie Alexander on Nan Goldin and Liz Jobey on Diane Arbus.
Reviews
These 11 thoughtful essays (each accompanied by a reproduction of the work being discussed) provide an in-depth look at important photographs spanning the history of the medium. The contributors, all major players in the world of contemporary photography, construct their essays from micro and macro perspectives, presenting key specifics and details of each photograph alongside consideration of the place these images hold in the history of the discipline. From the first photo ever taken, Latticed Window (with the Camera Obscura), August 1835, by William Henry Fox Talbot, to a recent work created using a blend of traditional photography and digital imaging (A view from an Apartment by Jeff Wall), the essays render photography as a hyper-accurate recording device, a mirror held up to our own social conventions and attitudes, an agent for social change and a method for commenting on culture and history. Traditional-minded readers may be put off by the language of "photographic desire," or "precariousness of pictorial structure," but those sympathetic to postmodern approaches to art will no doubt find this work of great interest, as will those interested in photography in general.
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