The Photograph in Contemporary Art.

THE PHOTOGRAPH IN CONTEMPORARY ART

BY CHARLOTTE COTTON

LONDON: THAMES & HUDSON, 2004. 222 PP./$ 16.95 (SB)

Although the ambition of this book is "not to create a checklist of all the photographers who merit a mention in a discussion on contemporary art, but to give a sense of the spectrum of motivations and expressions that currently exist in the field," it essentially lists a great number of contemporary practitioners whose primary goal is to be part of the art market. From her former experience curating photography at the Victoria and Albert museum to her current job as program director at the Photographers' Gallery in London, the author has established an index of photographers whose nationalities are predominantly American, English, and German. The rest of the world is only illustrated by a few names, and most photographers who are quite present on the national or international scene, but who were unfortunate enough to be born in France, Italy, or Spain are consciously ignored. With such reservations about content, it must be added that the analytical approach that a real survey would necessitate is also dangerously missing, only to be replaced by descriptions of the artists' works, and enough repetitions of the word "conceptual."

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In a 13-page introduction the author grounds her typology in the history of ("art") photography with the examples of William Eggleston ("the photographers' photographer" [!]), Stephen Shore, and the Bechers ("rephrasing vernacular photography" [... with an 8"X10" view-camera and black and white film!]). This very short list that is abruptly interrupted by the intrusion of a paragraph on Seydou Keita and David Goldblatt. Then in a rather surprising fashion, the introduction ends with a paragraph on Ralph Eugene Meatyard, a stylistic approach that will be coherently confirmed by the way the book ends.

In order to avoid an alphabetical list of the names of authors that she must have encountered between Cromwell road and Great Newport street, Cotton structured her book in seven chapters: "If This Art" (staged photography), "Once Upon a Time" (tableaux vivants, single-image narratives), "Deadpan" ("cool, detached, and keenly sharp." "Deadpan" is another key word in Ms Cotton's vocabulary after "conceptual"), "Something and Nothing" (photographs of "non-human things" [!], "Intimate Life," "Moments in History" ("anti-reportage stance"), and "Revived and Remade" (postmodern and anti-modernist).

The book ends short without a conclusion but with an index. The latter may rapidly establish itself as the best asset of this book as it allows the user to quickly navigate the 211 pages of text and illustrations, and effectively reach the descriptive content attached to every name. In conclusion this paperback will reveal itself an ideal, but incomplete companion to the catalogs listing photo galleries, published for such fine art photography shows (gallery/art market fairs) as AIPAD, Paris Photo, and their now numerous likes, that draw large crowds of potential fortunate buyers, real amateurs, and image consumers.

After reading Frank O'Hara's book of poems titled Lunch Poems, Gus Powell who worked in a, midtown Manhattan office, took to the street with his 35 mm camera loaded with color film.