Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics - Hardcover

Berger, John; Strauss, David

4.18

296 ratings by Goodreads

9781931788106: Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1931788103 ISBN 13: 9781931788106

Publisher: Aperture, 2005

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David Levi Strauss is a writer whose visual and intellectual sensibilities are both acute and expansive. His trenchant writings on photography and photographers have been collected for this volume from a broad range of magazines, including Aperture, Artforum and The Nation. In Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics, Strauss tackles subjects as diverse as “Photography and Propaganda,” the imagery of dreams, Sebastiao Salgado's epic social documents and the deeply personal photographic revelations of Francesca Woodman. The timely issue of photographic legitimacy is addressed in the essay “Photography and Belief,” and in “The Highest Degree of Illusion,” Strauss discusses the media frenzy surrounding the events of September 11. As our world is shaped more and more by images and their slipperiness, what he calls a media “pandemonium” in its root meaning of “the place of all howling demons,” we need a mind and voice like Levi Strauss' to bring clarity to our vision.

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About the Author:

David Levi Strauss is a writer and critic in New York, where his essays and reviews appear regularly in Artforum and Aperture. His collection of essays on art and politics are Between Dog and Wolf and Broken Wings: The Legacy of Landmines.

Review:

"Tackling subjects that range from photography and propaganda to the imagery of dreams, epic social documents to personal photographic revelations, Between the Eyes comprises eighteen of Strauss's persuasive and poetic writings on photography and photographers, accompanied by numerous black and white illustrations." --HotShoe International

"From true stories of optimistic photographers struggling to use their craft to help the oppressed, to the stunning impact that cameras any layperson can easily use have had upon photography as a whole, Between The Eyes is an insightful, contemplative, tightly written set of discussions, illustrated with a handful of well-chosen photographic images." --Bookwatch

"Contradictions at the heart of photography, such as the camera's capacity to salvage beauty from dreadful situations, come in for serious reflection in Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics by former San Franciscan David Levi Strauss." --The San Francisco Chronicle

"All photographs become a query sent out into the world, their effect unknown. In Strauss's own query, politics is not politics as usual. It is that place where being and society converge, powerfully expressed in the passion of the photographer's own aesthetic. Strauss makes a compelling case for still believing in the truth of photography." -- Shawn O'Sullivan --B&W Magazine

"...in essence, truth is what Strauss' essays are about: the sad truth about the limitations of the news media, the horrible truth about the proliferation of land mines in Cambodia and the devastation unleashed on its people, and the pathetic truth about the scandal of silence that surrounded the massacres in Rwanda in 1994... The truth can be a tough read, but do read this book--it is an eye-opener." --THE Magazine

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