Critical Focus: Photography in the International Image Community

A. D. Coleman

ISBN 10: 3923922264 / ISBN 13: 9783923922260

Published by Nazraeli Press, Tuscon, 1999

About this Item

Essays by the noted photography critic. Black-and-white reproductions. Third printing. Signed by author on title page "A.D. Coleman, Houston, March 2000." Minor wear and light toning to white covers. No other marks or fading to inside pages. Not ex-library. No crease to spine. 184 pages. s96.

Seller Inventory # EDB02984

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Critical Focus: Photography in the International Image Community
• Publisher: Nazraeli Press, Tuscon
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3923922264
• ISBN 13: 9783923922260
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

A. D. Coleman is widely considered the dean of North American photography criticism. His writings have been translated into 17 languages and published in 24 countries. This provocative new selection of recent reviews, reportages and commentaries is the first published collection of his essays since the now-classic Light Readings of 1979. Arranged chronologically, like its predecessor, Critical Focus discusses many of the most important photography-related events of the past five years. Topics include such diverse matters as censorship, international photography festivals, public funding for the arts - and the works of such picture-makers as Sally Mann, Cindy Sherman, Christian Boltanski, Romare Bearden, Robert Mapplethorpe, Barbara Kruger, and Andres Serrano. An informative, pithy and intelligent look at contemporary photography.

Reviews

Other than several essays in photographic monographs, Coleman has not released a major body of writings since his acclaimed Light Readings (LJ 2/15/79). Here he has compiled selections from his "Letter from" series that appeared between 1989 and 1993 in Photo Metro, a San Francisco-based photographic magazine. Coleman is a rigorous critic with a deep, insightful knowledge of the method, theory, and history of photography. Unlike much contemporary criticism that often lapses into dense ideological analysis that is inaccessible to the uninitiated, Coleman's text delights with lucid, well-reasoned analyses of a variety of imagery. Although he states he has tried to expand his perspective to participate in the "international image community," he has not realized his desire. Though several photographers from Eastern Europe and Latin America are represented, most of the essays remain centered on western European and predominantly American photography. Still, he provides a richer understanding of the images of those artists included and doesn't shy from taking to task photographers whose images he feels have "devolved to mere fashion." Recommended for all collections.?Kathy J. Anderson, Indiana Ctr. for Global Business, Indiana Univ., Bloomington
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