Art Photography Research Articles

From Postmodernism to Posthumanism: The Photographed Animal

This essay was inspired by the growing critical and artistic attention currently afforded to the subject of the nonhuman animal within Posthumanism and a curiosity to explore photographic practices that could potentially contribute to this endeavour. An exploration of Postmodernist art practice has revealed a dramatic shift in approach to the nonhuman animal subject; essentially characterised as a move from a sceptical, emotionally-distanced, theoretically-grounded range of practices to those that are emotionally-engaged, affective and ethically responsive. This is not to suggest that this characterises all Posthumanist photographic practices; a number of critical writers ably theorise about global networks, nonhuman photography, abstraction of vision. Instead, I examine photographic practices which are embedded within compassion, generosity, responsibility. This is not a return to the modernist notion of the artist and his or hers creation, but a plea for productive interrelations based on equality and experimentation which will potentially lead to novel ways of living. Keywords: animality, art photography, nonhuman, photography of animals, posthumanism

Autorstvo i jezik u knjigama savremenih arhitekata

This paper examines theoretical, graphical, and material dimensions of the contemporary print culture of architecture with a focus on one work from a variety of European practices. It regards the contemporary architect's book as a speculative and discursive design object. Michel Foucault, particularly in his works, What is an Author? (1969) and The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), criticises that while constructing an author's body of works, alternative and unclassified genres are omitted from the domain and the texts attached to the single name belong to a system of homogeneity, filiation, and reciprocal explanation. Yet the contemporary architect's book expands the borders of genres by comprising unconventional materials, such as musical notes, artistic photographs, paintings, technical and scientific diagrams, official reports, building regulations, newspaper articles, and advertisements, as well as combining texts and photographs from co-workers, partners, clients, and users, rather than emerging as the product of a single author. The paper interprets the use of various forms of graphical narration and the coalescence of novel terminology and jargon as a contribution to the power of language and discursive formation.

Anne McCauley (dir.), Clarence H. White and His World. The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895‑1925

Anne McCauley (dir.), Clarence H. White and His World. The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895‑1925

Seeing is (Dis)Believing: A Reading of Thomas Demand's “Modell/Model” (2000)

AbstractIn this commentary I interpret Thomas Demand's photographic work “Modell/Model” (2000) as undermining the strong temptation to think that when we view a photograph – a light‐capturing mechanism – seeing is believing. Demand provides a regress of models of models (recalling Plato's skeptical view of art as unknowing copies of copies) that ultimately proves unfathomable, hence, uncanny. Demand is the Socrates of contemporary art photography: here seeing is not‐knowing. What we do not know is that Demand's photograph is based on a partially erased paper and cardboard model of the scene depicted in a Nazi era photograph of a model of the German Pavilion (Hoffman, 1937) – which recalls the global ambitions of Nazism and the aesthetic connection Hitler wanted to make between neo‐classical fascist architecture and the “new man” of the Third Reich.

ABOUT THE 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE SURFACE

The 5th International Conference On the Surface: Photography on Architecture - Visual Spaces of Change: Unveiling the Publicness of Urban Space through Photography and Image, which took place on the 31st of May 2019 on occasion of MAAT’s Fiction and Fabrication exhibition offered a forum for an interdisciplinary debate on photography and architecture, with a strong editorial component devoted to the publication of original works and ideas at the intersection of these two fields. Aiming to promote the awareness and reflection upon Architecture and Art, namely documentary photography in regard to its conception as an instrument to question the universes of Architecture, City and Territory, the theme chosen for this edition of On the Surface focused on the contemporary transformations of the public space: “Visual Spaces of Change: unveiling the publicness of urban space”. Proposing to debate and explore the potential of Image and Photography as resourceful tools to research and to reflect upon and render visible the emergence of new collective experiences in the social space, the focus was on Documentary and Artistic Photography for addressing crosscutting issues that are shaping contemporary changes in cosmopolitan territories. This conference wanted in this way to contribute for greater social interaction among artistic and cultural institutions and academia, extending the action of museums, universities and art venues beyond their traditionally circumscribed spaces of action, stimulating the agents and institutions involved to be more active and open to debate in their approaches to public space. The intention was to render visible aspects of urban change, as well as how architectures, places and spaces are used and lived, crossing and shifting traditional boundaries for expanding the capacity of institutions to participate in the public domain. In this sense, we aim to contribute for critically thinking architecture as an integrative field of knowledge with historical, cultural, social, economic and political dimensions, and explore photography as a dynamic process of discovery, documentation and reflection that incorporates interpretive, artistic and even fictional aspects of these multiple dimensions. On the Surface 2019 challenged authors and researchers from the fields of photography and architecture to discuss and use image and photography to better understand the city as a living organism, a rich multifaceted space characterized by a variety of experiences and programs, which are a reflection of the knowledge, beliefs, values and customs that characterize different societies. Thus, a central objective of the conference was to discuss in what way image and photography can be used to unveil how architecture expresses the cultural values and identity of our cities, being these critical research instruments for understanding and perceiving architecture in meaningful ways, as well as for understanding the past in order to better grasp the transformations that are increasingly influencing our social practices and place experiences, affecting the modes of citizen participation and cultural interaction. By overlapping and crisscrossing the disciplinary boundaries of Image, Art and Architecture, the borders of these disciplinary fields are challenged for critically thinking through contemporary changes occurring in between physical and virtual dimensions of everyday life. Through the realization of these debates, it was intended to contribute to the creation of a space of exploration, discussion and reflection towards new ideas and research paths about the use of photography as an instrument of visual research and communication, as well as about architecture and the public space, with a focus on emerging dynamics of urban transformation. [...]

A One-Day Derive in Johannesburg. Vladislavić’s and David Goldblatt’s Photo-Text between Flânerie and Psychogeography

Among the South African writers, Vladislavic’s interest in the Fine Arts and the Visual Arts leads him both to relate literature to photography and to cooperate with artists in various projects. His well-known Double Negative 2012 (2010), a novel accompanying the photographic album by David Goldblatt, TJ. Johannesburg Photographs 1948-2010 , has already attracted the attention of another writer/photographer, the New York based Nigerian novelist Teju Cole, and several comments by South African critics, among them Johan Jacobs and Stephen Clingman. It is an extremely interesting example of an attempt at creating a dialogue between the complementary arts of poiesis and images. Double Negative and TJ create a double-bind dynamics of reading/gazing through two works, two media, two languages, two semiotic and rhetorical systems that also guide the reader through the History of South Africa between pre- and post-apartheid, up to the threshold of the digital era. The aim of this contribution is to position ourselves along the horizon of the interpreters of the photographic art (with Benjamin, Barthes, Sontag) and to detect the various possible intermedial interrelations (Debord, W.J.T. Mitchell) between the “fictional” narrative and the “real” photos, between the ethical and the aesthetic vision of two major contemporary South African artists.

Las fotografías de Aragão Humberto en el libro A poética da imagem

Aragão Filho, H. L. de. (2017). A poética na imagem. São Paulo: Intermeios.This review deals with the work titled The poetics of the image, organized by Humberto Lima de Aragão Filho, that presents some of the most important and awarded photographs from the 1950s and 1960s produced by the Brazilian photographer Aragão Humberto. The book contains approximately 40 images that show that the artist worked according to the trends of the photographic art of that moment, exploring the transparency, the distortion, the backlight and the regionalist theme, particularly that of the Brazilian Northeastern man.

Two Modes of Political Engagement in Contemporary Israeli Art Photography

AbstractRanging from photojournalism to landscape photography from the late 1980s to the present, this article studies the ways in which Israeli still art photography has engaged politically with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Following historical contextualization of the emergence of critical engagement in the late 1980s and the iconography of the conflict during the first Intifada, and after introducing notions from the sociology of critique, the article uses distinctions made by art photographers in classifying themselves and their peers and identifies two contrasting poles that mark the extremities of the field. Based on the understanding of the distinctness of photography as a medium with regard to the ways the photographer draws on signs from reality, the article characterizes the two modes of engagement as “indirect” or “direct.” The indirect mode is metaphorical, evading the easily identifiable iconography of the conflict; the direct mode focuses on its already visually fixed expressions in order to place its image before the eyes of viewers. The article then illustrates both modes with photographers who consistently pursue either a direct or an indirect mode of engagement and argues for a close relationship between each of the two modes and a distinct conception of politically engaged photographic critique. The article argues that the two modes differ both in terms of their conception of photography and with regard to their conception of politics and political education. Without ignoring ambivalence, which is built into the medium of photography, or the ambiguities built into any attempt of classification, the aim of the article, ultimately, is to bring to the surface the contrasting foundations of the two modes and the methods of engagement to which they are tied.

O punctum e a fotografia de arte. Nas sendas do último Barthes

O artigo trata da entrada da fotografia de arte no horizonte da obra tardia de Roland Barthes, onde é vista acedendo à dignidade do estilo. Nesse sentido, chama a atenção para um pequeno conjunto de ensaios sobre certa vanguarda da arte fotográfica francesa por ora pouco considerado pelos estudiosos. Trata-se de assinalar que esta produção barthesiana da fase final enseja revisar o conjunto probatório que dá sustentação ao conceito de “punctum”, entendido como aceno mínimo de significância de uma foto quando para um espectador contundente. É inseparável disso conjecturar que, ao referi-la ao estilo, o último Barthes confere à fotografia o mesmo valor de “escritura” que concede à arte da palavra, quando não assertiva.

We The People: Portraits of Resistance and America Reconstructed

We The People: Portraits of Resistance and America ReconstructedDonna BassinDonna Bassin84 Haller Dr., Cedar Grove, NJ 07009. E-mail: [email protected]Donna Bassin, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and published author, filmmaker, and fine art photographer. She is an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and in private practice in New York City. She has directed and produced two award-winning documentaries, Leave No Soldier and The Mourning After.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:December 2018https://doi.org/10.1521/prev.2018.105.6.709PDFPDF PLUS ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations AboutREFERENCESBassin D. (2017). The art(s) of witness: Through the camera and the psychoanalytic situation. In Hagman G. (Ed.), Art, creativity and psychoanalysis: Perspectives from analyst-artists (pp. 165–181). New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis. Google ScholarBenjamin J. (2018). Beyond doer and done to: Recognition theory, intersubjectivity and the third. New York: Routledge. Google ScholarBion W. (1988). Notes on memory and desire. In Spillius E. B. (Ed.), Melanie Klein today: Developments in theory and practice, Vol. 2, Mainly practice (pp. 17–21). Florence, KY: Taylor & Frances/Routledge. (Original work published 1967) Google ScholarButler J. (2009). Frames of war: When is life grievable? New York: Verso. Google ScholarCole T. (2018, August 23). There's less to portraits than meets the eye, and more. New York Times Mag. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/magazine/theres-less-to-portraits-than-meets-the-eye-and-more.html Google Scholarhooks, b. (2000). All about love: New visions. New York: Harper Perennial. Google ScholarMaltz-Leca L. (2013). Process/procession: William Kentridge and the process of change. Art Bull., 95:139–165. Google ScholarMirlesse S. (2012, March 22). Light, looking: Uta Barth. BOMB. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/light-looking-uta-barth/ Google ScholarMitchell S. A. (2000). Relationality: From attachment to intersubjectivity. New York: Analytic Press. Google ScholarMorrison T. (2015, March 23). No place for self-pity, no room for fear. Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/no-place-self-pity-no-room-fear/ Google ScholarPizer B. (2008). Passion, responsibility, and “wild geese”: Creating a context for the absence of conscious intentions. Psychoanal. Dialog., 15:57–84. Crossref, Google ScholarSegal H. (1997). Silence is the real crime. In Psychoanalysis, literature, and war: Papers, 1972–1995 (pp. 143–156). London: Routledge. (Original work published 1987) Google ScholarSolnit R. (2014). The faraway nearby, New York: Penguin Books. Google ScholarWhite M. (1960). Aperture, 8(4). Google ScholarWhite M. (1963). Equivalence: The perennial trend. PSA J., 29:17–21. Google Scholar Previous article Next article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 105Issue 6Dec 2018 Information© 2018 N.P.A.P.PDF download

Effects of Preceding Context on Aesthetic Preference

Two experiments were conducted to examine sequential context effects on judgments of liking for artistic photographs. In Experiment 1, target photographs were preceded in a sequence by context photographs prerated for liking. The results showed that viewing time and response time for targets increased when preceded by highly liked context photographs. However, ratings of liking for targets were unaffected. In Experiment 2, target photographs were preceded by pleasant or unpleasant context photographs. An assimilation effect on target ratings was produced by unpleasant context, with targets rated lower for liking. Both pleasant and unpleasant context photographs affected viewing time and response time for targets. Overall, the results from both experiments show that the presence of an artwork that immediately precedes another artwork in a sequence can affect the processing of the subsequent artwork. This suggests that the positioning of artworks in sequences can produce context effects on art appreciation.

Research on the integration of photographic images and photography art based on 3D virtual reality technology

SummaryNowadays, with the continuous development of online media technologies, there has also been qualitative breakthroughs and innovations in the photographic art. A new type of virtual reality technology was born. Virtual reality technology is a three‐dimensional space model, the basis of using computer network media, and provides users with various aspects and multi‐view sensory experiences. First, it analyzes the photographic imagery and technology fundamentally. Then, it analyzes the basic elements of the photographic art form and analyzes several measures of the creative form of the photographic art. Finally, it focuses on the in‐depth research on the cooperation between technology and art in the innovation form. The photography art it has also absorbed the essence of all kinds of art in the practice. It has become a popular appreciation culture, but also, it brought new life to the life of people. 3D virtual technology can be able to create a “virtual world.” It has the sense of reality and imagination of the three‐dimensional graphics. Photography imaging and 3D image the fusion of art and technology embodies the diversity of art forms.

Photographic representations of jazz

Musical instrument makers were key suppliers to the jazz art world of the 1930s and '40s. They operated with well-developed ideas about musicians. As instrument manufacture moved to volume production, advertising spend rose significantly and manufacturers turned to the advertising industry to translate these conceptions into a selling vocabulary, or 'professional code'. Testimonial advertising incorporating photography became a preferred style and Down Beat emerged as an extremely important medium. Based on a survey of some 1,500 testimonial advertisements in Down Beat between 1938 and 1948, this article shows how assumptions about the nature of musicianship, the social and racial composition of jazz, the relationship between art and commerce and the lifestyle aspirations of working musicians were signed within these advertisements. The analysis traces their intertextual relationship with Down Beat editorial and broader impact through collateral print material. The analysis hopefully suggests further lines of enquiry as well as highlighting the benefits from study of jazz photography beyond the narrow canon of white art photographers.

“We Were Looking for Our Violins”

Abstract This essay examines a creative dialogue between painters and poets, among them Nissim Ezekiel, Adil Jussawalla, Bhupen Khakhar, Arun Kolatkar, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Gieve Patel, and Sudhir Patwardhan, in Bombay (Mumbai) during a period that encompassed Khakhar's first solo show at the Jehangir Art Gallery in 1965 and the publication of four books of poetry by Clearing House, an independent press established in 1976 by Jussawalla, Kolatkar, Mehrotra, and Patel. Through a close analysis of word and image, it illuminates the distinctive aesthetics and politics of these artists encapsulated by the terms lifting and loafing. The Bombay painters and poets came to lifting—documenting and defamiliarizing—their environment by citing and subverting street signs, advertisements, state propaganda, calendar art, film posters, and newspaper photographs. They took to loafing—a mode of critical observation and analysis, and the pursuit of committed deprofessionalization and translation across spaces—and mobilized the ordinary, yet extraordinary, spaces of the paan (areca nut wrapped in betel leaf) shop and the Irani restaurant as metaphors of artistic sociability and subjectivity. Through lifting and loafing, the Bombay painters and poets offered a critique of nationalist and bourgeois values, as well as the artistic establishment represented by associations and institutions such as the Progressive Artists Group and Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art. They diverged from their predecessors and peers in an emphasis on everyday life and found objects, and in bringing together the visual and verbal worlds exemplified by the Baroda (Vadodara)-based journal Vrishchik.

Kâulak y el retrato fotográfico. Visualidad y repentismo

El debate sobre la consideración artística de la fotografía fue una constante desde su presentación oficial en 1839. Uno de los principales autores en la historia de la fotografía española, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Vallejo, Kâulak (1862-1933), reflexionó sobre el arte fotográfico y publicó sus conclusiones en las revistas del primer tercio del siglo XX, fundamentalmente en La Fotografía, creada por él en octubre de 1901. Cánovas abrió galería en 1904 y retrató a la sociedad madrileña hasta comienzos de los años treinta. Este artículo tiene por objeto presentar las reflexiones de Kâulak sobre el arte fotográfico y poner en valor su trabajo como retratista, destacando dos de las características que consideró fundamentales: la visualidad o fotogenia y el “repentismo” o capacidad de respuesta ante el comportamiento del modelo.

Documentary Photography from the German Democratic Republic as a Substitute Public

This paper discusses artistic documentary photography from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from the mid-1970s until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and suggests that it functioned as a substitute public–Ersatzöffentlichkeit–in society. This concept of a substitute public sphere sometimes termed a counter-public sphere, relates to GDR literature that, in retrospect, has been allocated this role. On the whole, in critical discourse certain texts have been recognised as being distinct from GDR propaganda which sought to deliver alternative readings in their coded texts. I propose that photography, despite having had a different status to literature in the GDR, adopted similar traits and also functioned as part of a substitute public sphere. These photographers aimed to expose the existing gap between the propagandised and actual life under socialism. They embedded a moral and critical position in their photographs to comment on society and to incite debate. However, it was necessary for these debates to occur in the private sphere, so that artists and their audience would avoid state persecution. In this paper, I review Harald Hauswald’s series Everyday Life (1976–1990) to demonstrate how photographs enabled substitute discourses in visual ways. Hauswald is a representative of artistic documentary photography and although he was never published in the official GDR media, he was the first East German photographer to publish in renowned West German and European media outlets, such as GEO magazine and ZEITmagazin, before the reunification. In 1990, he founded the ‘Ostkreuz–Agency of Photographers’ with six other East German documentary photographers.

Between Re-production and Re-presentation: The Implementation of Photographic Art Reproduction in the Documentation of Museum Collections Online

Museums extend their visibility beyond the physical institutions by providing online collections. By doing this, the museums seek to make a whole collection accessible to visitors online and, as a result, to make the cultural heritage accessible to a broader spectrum of society. Although the collections are represented under the inherent conditions of the graphical user interface, online collections are based on earlier forms of representation, and have implemented their principles. To find precursors and influences on current online collections the following research questions are discussed: What influence has photography had on the inventory processes and the visibility of museum collections? What kind of remaking happened with the combination of text and image in classifying systems at the turn of the 20th century? What effect has this early remake had on current online collections?This article explores one early remaking of a museum collection. The Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (The Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg) started to use photography as an addition to text based classification systems. Contemporaneously the photographic reproductions were used as an illustration for the depicted museum objects in publications. The first employee of the museum, Wilhelm Weimar, primarily made sketches of museum objects and in 1897 started to photograph them. As a result 1700 glass plate negatives in three different sizes were produced, which mainly show museum objects or details of them. In this article the photographic art reproduction on glass plate negatives from Wilhelm Weimar are analyzed. In a second step the history of index cards introduces a classification system that became omnipresent in libraries and all kind of offices since the late 19th century. In the Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg index cards were illustrated with images, and prints mounted on cardboard provided more accessible representations of the depicted objects, which were held in storage.

Fine Art Photography: A New Perspective in Documenting Architecture

Nowadays, our environment surrounded by thousands of images. Images are essential in human communication then, it can be viewed from a verity of form and style. Thereby, this research intended to explore the perspective of fine art photography in documenting the architecture. Masjid Ubaidah, Kuala Kangsar was selected as the case study to implement this new perspective of photograph specifically. This study was conducted using qualitative research where the design process was involved in visual research analysis. The structure observation was carried out to identify the common style used by photographer in producing the images of Masjid Ubaidah, Kuala Kangsar and how the creativity and aesthetic value can be built by injecting the fine art approach. This research found that the potential for fine art approach as a new method in documenting Masjid Ubaidah, Kuala Kangsar by establishing the diversity of creativity in aesthetic discussion.

Beyond cinema: Daphne du Maurier’s intermedial experiments in ‘The Little Photographer’ (1952)

Abstract Among the short stories du Maurier wrote, ‘The Birds’ and ‘Don’t Look Now’ stand out. The first has famously been singled out by Alfred Hitchcock and the second by Nicolas Roeg for their respective film adaptations. The fate of these two short stories confirms Elizabeth Bowen’s statement according to which the short story, apart from being close to other literary genres, such as poetry and drama, developed alongside cinema. Although du Maurier has often been acclaimed as a peerless storyteller, critics have generally focused on these two short stories, especially ‘The Birds’, and almost entirely neglected the others. This article takes a close look at ‘The Little Photographer’ (1952) and explores its affinities with other art forms than cinema, namely, photography. Beyond the motif of photography and the visual qualities of the narrative, the mediating function of photography within the narrative will first be analysed. The manipulative skills of the photographer and the narrator will then be confronted and the dialogue between the art of photography and writing explored. Finally, du Maurier’s ability to work across media will be shown to reverberate on her perception and (re)definition of modernism.

The Perception and Views of Photographers on Artistic Photography in Turkey

The purposes of this study are to know generally the perception and view of photographers on artistic photography in a purposeful sample in Turkey. Participants were purposefully selected (purposive sample) from the community of photographers because it would represent diverse photographers in Turkey. The survey included 19 questions and divided into three parts. Findings of our study revealed that most of the participants were at their middle-age, male, married, university graduates, private sector employed, DSLR users, amateur/ traveling-landscape-portrait photographers, and they shoot their photos to be happy, to document anything, and for spending time (Hobby). They mainly thought that photos should be taken for documentary reasons. The creativity is mainly dependent on perspective (or photographic seeing). Good photography could be achieved with good photographic technique, a good photo is relying on the influence to the spectator, photo critics/reading should be mainly based on technique, the most influential movement is realism, artistic photography will improve, photography in future will improve, and some are participating in photographic projects. The results show that good grounds exist in Turkey to shape artistic photography for the needs of the 21st century.