The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography - Hardcover

Rexer, Lyle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1597111007 ISBN 13: 9781597111003

Publisher: Aperture, 2009

Synopsis

From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography is the first book in English to document this phenomenon and to put it into historical context, while also examining the diverse approaches thriving within contemporary photography. Author Lyle Rexer examines abstraction at pivotal moments, starting with the inception of photography, when many of the pioneers believed the camera might reveal other aspects of reality. The Edge of Vision traces subsequent explorations--from the Photo Secessionists, who emphasized process and emotional expression over observed reality, to Modernist and Surrealist experiments. In the decades to follow, in particular from the 1940s through the 1980s, a multitude of photographers--Edward Weston, Aaron Siskind and Barbara Kasten among them--took up abstraction from a variety of positions. Finally, Rexer explores

About this title

About the Author:

Lyle Rexer is a New York–based independent writer and critic. His previous books include Photography’s Antiquarian Avant-Garde (2002) and How to Look at Outsider Art (2005); he contributed an interview with Chuck Close and Bob Holman to A Couple of Ways of Doing Something (Aperture, 2006), and is the author of Edge of Vision (Aperture, 2010.)

Review:

"It is a handsome volume, well in keeping with the reputation of the press, and timely in its effort to broadly rethink the history of photography." -- Nancy Roth --Source: A Photographic Review

"[the works are] not photography, not in the familiar sense--they're pure expression." -- Robert Shuster --The Village Voice

"...the artists use unusual and deliberately accident-prone processes to turn out unique prints." --The New Yorker

"Photographer friends will enjoy this book on the history of abstract photography for its artistic merit and watershed images. Nonphotographer friends will enjoy this book because they will think it is a very hard Magic Eye. Hey, as long as everyone's happy." --Tokion Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Aperture
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1597111007
• ISBN 13: 9781597111003
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256