A Gust of Photo-Philia: Photography in the Art Museum PDF
Preview A Gust of Photo-Philia: Photography in the Art Museum
A Gust of Photo-Philia Photography in the Art Museum Alexandra Moschovi Leuven University Press A Gust of Photo-Philia Photography in the Art Museum The Lieven Gevaert Series is a major series of substantial and inno- vative books on photography. Launched in 2004, the Series takes into account the ubiquitous presence of photography within modern cul- ture and, in particular, the visual arts. At the forefront of contemporary thinking on photography, the books offer new insights on the position of the photographic medium within art historical, theoretical, social and institutional contexts. The Series is produced by the Lieven Gevaert Research Centre for Photography, Art and Visual Culture (www.lievengevaertcentre.be) and covers four types of approaches: publication of outstanding mono- graphic studies, proceedings of international conferences, book length projects with artists, translations and republications of classic material. The Lieven Gevaert Series is published by Leuven University Press, and distributed in North America by Cornell University Press. A Gust of Photo-Philia Photography in the Art Museum Alexandra Moschovi Leuven University Press To Alex and Andromache Contents Preface 9 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 15 A Foot in the Museum’s Door 17 A Gust of Photo-Philia 22 The Question of the Medium 28 The Structure of the Book 36 1. Photography Itself 39 What is “Camera Esthetics”? 41 A “Universal” Language 46 Photography Itself 52 “More Than One Photography” 67 New Stories of Modern Art 73 Navigating an “Ocean of Images” 78 2. The Art(s) of Photography 91 Art Education for “All Classes” 93 A Collection for the Art of Photography 99 Between Form and Function 106 Toward the “Bigger Picture” 112 Pluralism and Participation 124 3. Art as Photography, Photography as Art 138 Art as Photography 139 The Unique Original Copy 145 Who’s Afraid of Contemporary Art? 152 A Photo-Philic Turn 157 Embracing the Vernacular 162 Photographies and Histories 167 Engaging New Audiences 176 4. Postmedia Pictures 182 A “Postmedia” Collection in the Making 184 A Global Museum 191 Hybrid Images 199 Accommodating the “Polymorphous” Photographic 202 A New Poetics of the Photographic Image 213 5. Between Images 220 Photography and the French State 223 A Postmodern Museum 227 A Collection for the Nation 234 Episode 1: Plasticity and Hybridity 239 Episode 2: Passages Between Media 248 Episode 3: What is (Museum) Photography After All? 256 Postscript 266 Notes 276 Bibliography 294 Preface The idea behind this book goes back a long time, to the mid-1990s when, as a photography practitioner, curator, and viewer, I witnessed first- hand the tensions between the hybridization of practices and media in artists’ photography and creative explorations of the medium itself by photographers. In 1996 I found myself in London pursuing postgradu- ate studies at Goldsmiths College. The same tensions informed the de- partmental segregation in British academic institutions, whereby pho- tography as image and communication was taught in Communications departments, while photography as a strand of the visual arts was integrated into Fine Arts programs. This ambiguous position of pho- tography largely prevailed in British art institutions, too. The Tate Gallery at Millbank did not include photography in the displays of its permanent collection, though Tate Liverpool had organized Witness: Photoworks from the Collection in 1995, and English a rtist Craigie Horsfield made the shortlist of the 1996 Turner Prize with his evoca- tive black-and-white portraits. That same year, the Hayward Gallery at South Bank was showing a touring retrospective of American photo- grapher Robert Mapplethorpe, albeit with the controversial photo- graph Rosie, which featured frontal nudity of a little girl, censored. In the west of London, the Victoria and Albert Museum was the last stop of the grand European tour of American Photography 1890–1965 from The Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated by the newly appointed Director of MoMA’s Department of Photography, Peter Galassi. The Photographers’ Gallery inaugurated the Citibank Photography Prize at the beginning of 1997 with the young artist Richard Billingham. Billingham’s photographic work Ray’s a Laugh would feature, along with those of photo-based artists Gillian Wearing and Sam Taylor- Wood, in the exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Gallery at the Royal Academy in London later that year. On the other side of the Channel, the exhibition La photographie contemporaine en France, which was staged at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, also in 1996, offered visitors an eclectic view of con- temporary trends. Bernard Plossu’s and Yves Guillot’s black-and-white photographs that registered the flux of life were juxtaposed with Tom Preface 9
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