Product Details
Hardcover
448 pages
Prestel USA
Published 1998
From Library Journal
These two volumes, each published to promote superb collections of contemporary photography, proselytize on behalf of the subject and thus complement each other perfectly in both style and content. The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, Chicago, began assembling a collection in 1982 with the aim of promoting the field and examining the work, particularly of American photographers of the 1960s through the present. The collection is also of note because its curators give equal weight to all the medium's roles: as aesthetic endeavor, as journalistic and historic record, as a tool of corporations in media and advertising, and as scientific instrument. Appropriately, the book is composed primarily of four long essays by leading writers examining each of these roles; interspersed generously throughout are more than 160 images from the collection with long captions that can be read independently or in connection with the surrounding essay. This celebration of the DG Bank Collection presents more than 210 photographs by 135 artists and accompanies a show traveling in Europe and Japan over the next two years. This is a small portion of DG's 3000 works by 300 artists, all amassed in the last five years under the direction of Sabau, the collection's curator. As such, the clear emphasis is on photographers of the 1990s, and, because it is a German institution, the selections are more international than one sees in most American surveys. After three short essays, the majority of the book is given to carefully written single-page essays on each artist followed by one to four examples of his or her work. The organization is alphabetical by name. Both books close with extensive biographical sections that serve as wonderful reference sources. All libraries should consider Photography's Multiple Roles; larger institutions and subject collections will also want The Promise of Photography.AEric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German |
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