Emerling - Photography: History and Theory

Photography

Jae Emerling has done the near impossible: he has written an introduction to the history and theory of photography that also adds significantly to the ways in which we come to see, know, and understand the world. Here, by focusing on the and between history and theory, photography itself becomes ingeniously a form of thinking. Photography is history, is theory, is technology, is archive, is document, is truth, is time, is knowledge, is a way to generate new worlds politically and aesthetically. Emerling writes that to study the history and theory of photography is to write and create alongsideand in the middle ofimages. He couldnt be more right.

Marquard Smith, Director, Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster, UK

Jae Emerling has produced a timely and thoroughly useful book that shows how the history of photography and the theories encouraged by that history have shaped our experience of the photographic work of art. His writing eloquently and accessibly considers those debates that have led to the concepts through which contemporary practitioners and viewers alike now confront the impossible object of an art photograph. This book is a must for anyone serious about the production, appreciation, or use of photographic images in the twenty-first century. Emerlings work beautifully defines artistic practice and theory as complementary but not identical, and points out that images are always already ensembles of history and ideas. For as he so succinctly states in his introduction, The footprint of a bird is not a bird.

William Wylie, Professor of Art, University of Virginia, USA

Photography: History and theory offers the most complex limit case for understanding representation in our time. What Emerling has done in situating the discourse of art photography on the dual thresholds of aesthetics/ethics and theory/history, is to open up the field to the ontological complexity of its subject domain. This book is an aston-ishing performance, a nuanced and lucid argument addressed to all those interested in why photography matters today.

Claire Farago, Professor of Art History, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

From its inception in the nineteenth century, photography has instigated a series of theoretical debates. In this new text, Jae Emerling therefore argues that the most insightful way to approach the histories of photography is to address simultaneously the key events of photographic history alongside the theoretical discourse that accompanied them.

While the nineteenth century is discussed, the central focus of the text is on modern and contemporary photographic theory. Particular attention is paid to key thinkers, such as Baudelaire, Barthes, and Sontag. In addition, the centrality of photography to contemporary art practice is addressed through the theoretical work of Allan Sekula, John Tagg, Rosalind Krauss, and Vilm Flusser. The text also includes readings of many canonical photographers and exhibitions, including Eugne Atget, Brassa, August Sander, Walker Evans, The Family of Man, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Cindy Sherman, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sebastio Salgado, Jeff Wall, and others.

In addition, Emerling provides close readings of key passages from some major theoretical texts. These glosses come between the chapters and serve as a conceptual line that connects them.

Glosses include:

• Roland Barthes, The Rhetoric of the Image (1964)
• Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (2002)
• Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969)
• Walter Benjamin, Little History of Photography (1931)
• Vilm Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography (1983)

A substantial glossary of critical terms and names, as well as an extensive bibliography, make this the ideal book for courses on the history and theory of photography.

Jae Emerling is Assistant Professor of modern and contemporary art at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA. He is the author of Theory for Art History (Routledge 2005).

Photography

History and theory

Jae Emerling

First published 2012

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2012 Jae Emerling

The right of Jae Emerling to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Emerling, Jae.

Photography : history and theory / Jae Emerling.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Photographic criticism. 2. Photography, Artistic--History.

I. Title.

TR187.E44 2012

770.1--dc23

2011023346

ISBN: 978-0-415-77854-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-77855-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-15321-5 (ebk)

Photography is like the art of another planet.

Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms

the world of images has never been constituted to the sole end of behaving to properly facilitate the self-constitution of a history or a knowledge.

Georges Didi-Huberman, Confronting Images

It is through admiration that you will come to genuine critique.

Gilles Deleuze, On Nietzsche and The Image of Thought

Contents

Gloss on Walter Benjamin, Little History of Photography (1931)

Gloss on Roland Barthes, The Rhetoric of the Image (1964)

Gloss on Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (2002)

Gloss on Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969)

Gloss on Vilm Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography (1983)

Figures

Courtesy of the Gernsheim Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Courtesy of Akademie der Knste, Berlin, Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv, BBA FA 7/26

Courtesy of the National Media Museum/SSPL

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Albert Renger-Patzsch Archiv/Ann und Jrgen Wilde, Zlpich/VG Bildkunst, Bonn/DACS, London 2010

Hattula Moholy-Nagy/DACS 2011

Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Courtesy of the Jersey Heritage Collections

Salvador Dali, Fundaci Gala-Salvador Dal, DACS, 2010

Jan Dibbets. Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York and Tate, London 2011

ESTATE BRASSA - RMN. Courtesy of Paris, Muse National dArt Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou

Estate of Margaret Bourke-White via Getty Images

Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987

Courtesy of the artist

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Courtesy of the photographic archives at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum