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Product Review Summary: Superb, Powerful & Economically Written (SUPERB imagery too) Most people would rather die than think - and, indeed, they do. - Bertrand Russell
I AM aware of some of the panning going on against this book in the USA - the same sort of panning that one can see frequently happening against Sontag's On Photography, which is ABSOLUTELY one of the most direct and succinct meditations on the medium I have yet seen. Precisely WHY it is that Americans seem to take such an anti-intellectual approach to these things is a bit beyond me. There seems to be, however, two distinct places from which persons unnamed approach thinking about the photograph (not totally unlike the two categories established at the start of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) - the 'Ansel Adams Classicists' and the 'Marxist Empiricists'. The first school considers any psychological inspection of the photograph an all-out assault on the sanctity of the soul and fertile hand of the artist-genius. To explore the production of art-objects within an intellectual, social and political framework is not just offensive - it's downright 'off the map'! Granted - there IS a culture of persons who subscribe to the Frankfurt School and October Magazine but don't understand it. And hell yeah - they give the 'art' crowd a bad name. But that's REALLY not what's going on here - please trust me. If you'd like to be a little more convinced of this please see the corresponding review on amazon's UK sister site. You'll find nothing but praise for this little ditty there.
For me - this book was clearly written and the thoughts expressed inside extremely well organized. I found it valuable, provocative and fruitful. A deeply worthy investment for those who are open to the idea of reframing existing knowledge in a larger and more sociably responsible way. The choice of phtoographs in this book was superb, I thought. A straight-up who's who of the more radical 'contemporary artist' oriented branch of the medium - the trailblazers from decades past - the people who made the starn twins and jeff wall and struths and others possible in the first place. If you want to cultivate a deep understanding of the photograph and it's importance in the world of art -especially contemporary art - this book is REQUIRED reading! Do your brain a favor and pick up a copy - and see some of the most powerful art of the 20th century while you're at it.
Product Review Summary: A Defense In defense of Mr. Clarke I offer the following: Photography is one of the most philosophically difficult art forms. Sure, one can apply similar aesthetic concepts and ideas--both formal and conceptual--to the photograph that one can to paintings and sculpture, but there are ideas that set the photograph apart from these other media. This is what people like Clark and Michael Fried are trying to do in their approach to photography. And, apropos of Oxford (especially this series), this is, after all, a scholarly work; not a survey of the coolest photographs of the last forty years. You cannot fault the book or the writer for not doing what you want it or him to do. That being said, the History of Art series by Oxford is precisely where one should go should one choose to ask the "whys" of art--not the who's, the what's or the how's. And, I'm sorry, but "why" questions and answers typically do not suppose a leisurely read. This is not to exalt these questions, nor denigrate the others, only to elucidate the playing field.
Product Review Summary: Absolute silence... I need absolute silence and maximum concentration to read this book, because it's written in a very complicated style. Have to read a lot of pages twice. Jump back, read again. Once I unscrambled the content (I'm not through yet though) so far, it is very interesting (to me as a non-art student). As an art-student you will probably know all this already. Still interesting to me.
Product Review Summary: Avoid This Book I found this book hard to read. The writing style of the author is overly wordy and he does not seem to develop his ideas in a readable manner. I would suggest that a potential purchaser looks elsewhere first to see if they can find a book that fulfills their needs better.
Product Review Summary: If Your Interest Is Photography, Don't Waste Your Money I picked up this book with great anticipation. I briefly skimmed through the pages, browsing over the relatively good reproductions of famous photographs. Since it was an Oxford book, I expected a fairly informative book on the history of the photograph. What did I get for my money and effort? Well, that evening, after putting the children to bed and opening a fairly good bottle of Australian Shiraz, I settled into my chair to begin reading. Within minutes I knew I shouldn't have bought the book. If I'd wanted to read someone's second-rate rehash of the last 30 years of literary and artistic theory, I certainly could have picked a writer with a much more engaging writing style. To put it bluntly, the critiques of the photos made me very tired: didactic, jargon-filled, and lacking in originality. . . I felt like I was back in graduate school listening to some banal graduate student who, after three semesters, has finally understood the basic tenets of deconstuctionism or academic marxism. Many hours later into the night, my wine glass empty, I shut the book. I felt victimized by Mr. Clarke's limited critical range and tedious political agenda. And I was sad: while there is a need to critique the political agendas of photography as an art form and photographers in general, Clarke makes little use of modern critical methods to help us understand the aesthetics of the art form. This, coupled with an overly academic writing style, leads to a very tiresome book. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, save perhaps, a dull graduate student just beginning to understand the rudiments of critical theory. P.S. In just looking at the cover, potential reader, do your own semiotic analysis. The photo is analagous to Mr. Clarke. He's turned his back away from his reader and the art form he seeks to help us understand.
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