Photography after Photography: Gender, Genre, History

Description

Presenting two decades of work by Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Photography after Photography is an inquiry into the circuits of power that shape photographic practice, criticism, and historiography. As the boundaries that separate photography from other forms of artistic production are increasingly fluid, Solomon-Godeau, a pioneering feminist and politically engaged critic, argues that the relationships between photography, culture, gender, and power demand renewed attention. In her analyses of the photographic production of Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Susan Meiselas, Francesca Woodman, and others, Solomon-Godeau refigures the disciplinary object of photography by considering these practices through an examination of the determinations of genre and gender as these shape the relations between photographers, their images, and their viewers. Among her subjects are the 2006 Abu Ghraib prison photographs and the Cold War-era exhibition The Family of Man, insofar as these illustrate photography's embeddedness in social relations, viewing relations, and ideological formations. List of Illustrations vii Preface. May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way / Sarah Parsons ix Introduction 1 1. Inside/Out (1995) 10 2. Written on the Body (1997) 27 3. The Family of Man: Refurbishing Humanism for a Postmodern Age (2004) 43 4. Torture at Abu Ghraib: In and Out of the Media (2007) 61 5. Harry Callahan: Gender, Genre, and Street Photography (2007) 77 6. Caught Looking: Susan Meiselas's Carnival Strippers (2008) 94 7. Framing Landscape Photography (2010) 107 8. The Ghosts of Documentary (2012) 123 9. Inventing Vivian Maier: Categories, Careers, and Commerce (2013) 141 10. Robert Mapplethorpe: Whitewashed and Polished (2014) 156 11. Body Double (2014) 171 12. The Coming of Age: Cindy Sherman, Feminism, and Art History (2014) 189 Notes 207 Bibliography 237 Index 249