“Second Hand Images”: On Art’s Surrogate Means and Media—Introduction

Abstract

In this essay I explore the mediation of art through reproductions and introduce a special issue, dedicated to the late Helene E. Roberts, former editor and senior editor of Visual Resources and a pioneer in the study of reproductions and their importance in shaping our visual experiences. This is the first of two issues honoring Roberts. Part two will be published in 2011. Drawing on Roberts’ notion of secondhand images and the vital role played by reproductions in the mid‐nineteenth century, I survey some of the scholarship on reproductions in the press and the mediations of photography as part of the larger understanding of the functions, uses, and receptions of images to which Roberts contributed. Among my references are ideas such as Marshall McLuhan’s medium as the message, the work of scholars of print culture, Jean Baudrillard’s simulacrum, John Fiske’s notions of incorporation and excorporation, Jay Bolton and Richard Grusin’s concept of remediation, and Régis Debray’s mediology.