The Focal Press Companion to the Constructed Image in Contemporary Photography

Marni Shindelman, Anne Massoni, Marni Shindelman, Anne Leighton Massoni

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317299103
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Art
• Categoria: Photography

This compendium examines the choices, construction, inclusions and exemptions, and expanded practices involved in the process of creating a photograph. Focusing on work created in the past twenty-five years, this volume is divided into sections that address a separate means of creating photographs as careful constructs: Directing Spaces, Constructing Places, Performing Space, Building Images, and Camera-less Images. Introduced by both a curator and a scholar, each section features contemporary artists in conversation with curators, critics, gallerists, artists, and art historians. The writings include narratives by the artist, writings on their work, and examinations of studio practices. This pioneering book is the first of its kind to explore this topic beyond those artists building sets to photograph.

Contents

Acknowledgment

Foreword

Introduction the State of Photography, the Status of Photographs

1 Building Images, Building Spaces

Madeline Yale Preston

Single Artist Spotlights

Jason DeMarte

Letha Wilson

Mark Dorf

Eva Stenram

Anthony Goicolea

Interviews

Adam Magyar

Darren Harvey-Regan

Hank Willis Thomas

Ruth Van Beek

2 Constructing Places

Stacy J. Platt

Single Artist Spotlights

Shirana Shahbazi

Susana Reisman

Liliana Porter

Interviews

Wang Ningde

Susan kae Grant

3 Sensations of Place: Artist Altered Environments

Liz Wells

Single Artist Spotlights

Adam Ekberg

Noémie Goudal

Matt Siber

Interviews

Laurent Millet

Thomas Jackson

4 Schematic Traces: Systems of Making

Kate Palmer Albers

Single Artist Spotlights

Natalie Czech

Shizuka Yokomizo

Pato Hebert

Interviews

Penelope Umbrico

Mishka Henner

5 Camera-Less: Photographic Fidelity (And Infidelity)

Katherine Ware

Single Artist Spotlights

Farrah Karapetian

Shimpei Takeda

Brittany Nelson

Interviews

Aspen Mays

Liz Deschenes

6 Performing for the Camera: Postmodernism, Antimodernism, and the Performative Photograph

William J. Simmons

Single Artist Spotlights

Renée Cox

Ou Zhihang

Stacey Tyrell

Interviews

Lilly McElroy

Hillerbrand+Magsamen

contributors

Index

Acknowledgments

Anne Leighton Massoni was trained as an anthropologist and photographer with dual majors from Connecticut College and additional study at Salt Center for Documentary Field Studies. During her graduate studies at Ohio University, she turned her practice of photography towards the constructed image, utilizing early versions of Photoshop to layer images and post-printing manipulation to further her image content. Massoni delved into the world of constructed photography in an effort to seek complexity in the creation of images made by a medium many construed as being as simple as pressing a button.While she recognizes that not everyone who embraces constructed imagery is bound to a layered technique or convoluted meaning, she asserts that all are engaged in the exchange of ideas and methods that move beyond capturing what is in front of the lens alone as the primary practice of the discipline. Self-identified as a storyteller, Massoni mines the layers of human memory through photographic images.

Marni Shindelman came to study photography through the social sciences.With an interdisciplinary degree in sociology, social psychology, and photography, she approached making with the keen eye of a scientist. Exploring concept through methods and experiments and using images as data, or raw materials, she was able to construct stories between the images, their original source, and the context through which she made the image. In her second class as a photography minor at Miami University, a friend and now colleague put up a series of images she had constructed with carefully placed markings on concrete walls and grocery store produce.These images changed the tone of the critique,and this moment was pivotal in Shindelman’s photographic education. Lucky to study under faculty who never treated the image as a given and who encouraged her to be an active maker within the medium, she approaches her practice and photography with this same tenor.

The photographic community known to Massoni and Shindelman has always been open and welcoming. Perhaps because the discipline first needed to legitimize the medium, those working after the pioneering generations of photography have reaped the benefits of an ever growing network of established communities and opportunities. The editors met through the Society for Photographic Education (SPE), an organization integral to both their practices as artists and educators. SPE has been a home for sharing with other academics and photographers and creating the next generation of image makers.

The list of those who have supported us is in this endeavor is lengthy, but first we must thank our writers and artists who graciously agreed to participate in the book; all our requests for images and writing were greeted with such enthusiasm and encouragement and we could not have done this project without them. Focal Press and Routledge have provided us a new space to frame this dialogue about photography. We have had institutional support from both The University of the Arts and the University of Georgia. There are countless colleagues who have been part of dynamic conversations about constructed images.

And finally, on a personal note, while SPE introduced us professionally, it is our love of our dogs that brought us together as friends. Therefore, we must thank our fearless canine working counterparts, Telly Monster and Nettie Mae, who have sat under our desks during conference calls, and put up with days of fewer walks than they deserved. Academia can be a very isolating route and friendships across the miles with those who share our lives as artists and professors is often the light at the end of very long days. This book would not have been possible without our friendship first.

Foreword

In Constructed, we engaged writers and makers to consider the development of constructed photographs since 1990. In an attempt to address the complexity of meaning behind the words “constructed photograph” and having a vested interest in artists in the beginning and middle of their careers, we aimed to create a book that engages the discipline of photography in a new and compelling way.We opted to spotlight post 1990, as so many of the artists who forged new ground for photography prior to this have been covered in previous histories and critiques of photography. It also marks the beginning of a shift in photographic practice brought about by digital technologies. In Constructed, we see how the medium reacted to these dramatic changes and at the same time stayed true to its origins of “making.”

As makers and educators, we began with the idea that all photographs are constructed and yet we recognized the need to distinguish this effort from what most see as a “conventional” photograph. In structuring this volume, we began with all the ways in which photographers construct images. Constructed is divided into six categories that are both distinct and yet offer flexibility and fluidity.We could have organized the book in many different ways and there are artists that easily fit in multiple sections. Our sequence builds on the levels of construction in the making of the work. As in much contemporary art, we recognize that images and concepts are dynamic and difficult to classify.

Building Image, Building Space begins with the idea of the image being “built” off another image. This may be within the camera, in post production, or through manipulation of the surface of the print.This method of building an image through photographic alteration is historically tied to early collage and montage.The camera and postproduction processes have introduced addition and subtraction of material as a process of image making. The method of building an image becomes an important conceptual underpinning in this work. Related is the building out of the photographic image into the three dimensional forms. Here we see the photo-graphic print manipulated to become both sculptural object and installation.

Constructing Places starts with “blank walls” and builds the entirety of an image within the photographic studio. Some examine the built environment with miniatures, but this work also extends into the realm of artists working with all scales and levels of constructing; both those which attempt to mimic the real and those that set out to create abstracted and surreal built environments. Also described is tableau photography, the constructed image ...