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Photography: a not so old art form

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Gabriel, in his last post, mentioned that fact that we often associate art with objects which are more than 2 centuries old but Talbot and Daguerre were presenting their discoveries around 1839, and only after that the art discipline of photography could emerge.


Photography as an art form is a very interesting discipline since it is so recent and evolved so fast, fed by the knowledge of more traditional art forms, in particular painting, which sometimes tried to imitate, other times tried to differentiate from and stimulated by continuous technological innovations that both constrained and pushed forward photography. On the other hand, the photographic technique is used so ubiquitously not only within the art but in contexts so diverse as bureaucracy, security, family memories, travel memories, science, that a first approach to the art discipline is often confusing. Why should this picture be considered an art object? Of course, this is one of the questions always present in the history of photography, and the answers have been plenty and very diverse.


I would like share here a series of short videos, a sort of introduction to photography trough the art of great photographers. These are intended more to arise curiosity about photography and art in general than to clarify or teach anything in a systematic way. Again, as in Of Beauty and Consolation, one of the things that I like about this series is the diversity of approaches, styles, motivations, even if we restrict ourselves to photography as an art form.


Anyway, the authors in these videos are well-known masters, even if they span several decades, they are somehow already part of the history of photography. If you are interested in contemporary authors you can take a look at another project, to which I have contributed with a couple of friends: Contemporary Photography Index. And of course, there are many other online resources on the same subject.


See for yourselves!




Vol 1: The Great Tradition of Photojournalism

  1. Henri Cartier-Bresson
  2. Edouard Boubat
  3. Josef Koudelka
  4. William Klein
  5. Don McCullin
  6. Helmut Newton
  7. Marc Riboud
  8. Leonard Freed
  9. Elliott Erwitt
  10. Robert Doisneau
  11. Raymond Depardon
  12. Mario Giacomelli

Vol 2: The Renewal of Contemporary Photography

  1. Araki
  2. Sophie Calle
  3. Duane Michal
  4. Nan Goldin
  5. Lewis Baltz
  6. Jeff Wall
  7. Andreas Gursky
  8. Hiroshi Sugimoto
  9. Thomas Ruff
  10. Sarah Moon
  11. Jean-Marc Bustamante

Vol 3: Conceptual Photography

  1. Thomas Struth
  2. Roni Horn
  3. Martin Parr
  4. Wolfgang Tillmans
  5. Georges Rousse
  6. Christian Boltanski
  7. Bernd & Hilla Becher
  8. Alain Fleischer
  9. John Baldessari
  10. John Hilliard

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Comments

  1. Gabriel J. Gil PérezMarch 23, 2017 at 3:26 AM

    We were indeed in perfect synchrony! I get back to you when I watch some of these videos. Very nice post, Claudia!

    ReplyDelete

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