Trace and Transformation: American Criticism of Photography in the Modernist Period.

Like Romeo and Juliet, modernism and photography just can't seem to live without one another. Due in part to the close proximity of their beginnings in the nineteenth century, photography's aspirations to legitimacy as an art form have been so firmly hitched to the wagon of modernism, that proponents of both the medium and the movement are almost hysterically attached to each other; much more so in modernism's relationship to photography than to any other medium. As a consequence of this codependent relationship, postmodernism has, to some, become the bad guy of the photography world, the interloper who would seduce photography to its own selfish ends, regardless of the consequences. This myth persists, despite the fact that photography plays a pivotal role, not only in postmodernist artworks, but indeed in creating what has been referred to as the "postmodern condition."

The latest attempt to reclaim modernism for photography's greater good - or perhaps vice versa - is cultural historian Joel Eisinger's Trace and Transformation, an "historical survey of American theory and criticism of art photography," between 1839 and the 1970s, or, according to Eisinger, photography's modernist period. Pictorialism, Straight Photography, Documentary Photography, Popular Criticism, Subjectivism and Formalism form a rigid but convincing linear procession of modernist movements and corresponding chapters. What is perhaps most interesting about Eisinger's approach is the fact that his linear timeline travels in two directions. As opposed to a chronological beginning-end progression, Eisinger jumps back and forth, referring regularly to postmodern theory as a foil to the discussion at hand. Such "backward" historicizing is curious. His explanation that the bringing of such contemporary criticisms to the historical discussion serves to "give clearer shape to modernism" is accurate, but perhaps fails to tell the whole story. The question arises as to what other purposes are also being served by such revisionist goggles and why Eisinger is either unwilling or unable to admit them into his discussion.

In the initial chapters of the book the references to postmodernism are comparatively innocuous. As the book progresses closer to the present, some of the interjections of postmodernism, in particular the ones comparing rather than contrasting modernist and postmodernist theories, become increasingly resonant. Writings by photographers and critics from the '60s and '70s such as Henry Holmes Smith, A. D. Coleman, Nathan Lyons and Minor White are all considered as precursors to postmodernism. Coleman's "subjectivist-era" writings are even removed from the chronological placement and show up instead in the conclusion, in the interest of positioning Coleman as a possible "first postmodern critic of photography."

More significant than the actual divvying up of these men into various stages of proto-postmodernism, is the fact that they are all seen as simultaneously maintaining characteristics of both modernism and postmodernism. Of course, ordinarily the only thing modernists and postmodernists are known to have in common is a certain mutual animosity, both sides more or less happy to view postmodernism as a complete break with the past. While Eisinger recognizes that "the greatest source of consistency in postmodernism is its opposition to basic tenets of modernism," at the same time his writing is working to prove that such opposition is more about the image than about reality. This is further evidenced toward the end of the book when we arrive at the emergence of postmodernism in the '70s and the consequent rendering peripheral of modernism's most basic themes, the logical conclusion point, the book refuses to wrap things up and continues in a lengthy "conclusion" titled "Modernism and Postmodernism," that is more like another chapter.

It is a relief to find in the conclusion that Eisinger shows every bit as much dexterity homing in on some of the inconsistencies of postmodernism as he has shown discussing a variety of postmodern objections to modernist assertions at the appropriate historical moments. With regard to postmodern critics Douglas Crimp and Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Eisinger makes several points that not only expose the weak areas of their position, but once again reveal it to have much in common with modernism. The assertion that postmodernist or appropriationist artists like Sherrie Levine are undermining concepts of authorship is considered inaccurate. As Eisinger observes: "Theft does not destroy the concept of property, but merely affronts it." Similarly he recognizes the inherent contradiction in the treatment of appropriationists, whose acts "deny originality, insight and specialness." The appropriationists themselves are then, in turn, treated as original, insightful and special artists. Finally, Eisinger discusses the postmodern oxymoron of being original by denying the possibility of originality.

By implication, these contradictions within postmodernism serve to illuminate the fact that although it constructs itself as "oppositional to" modernism, it actually shares many of modernism's concerns: a preoccupation with authorship, museum hierarchy and originality. Modernism and postmodernism are less like oil and water and more like two different sides of the same coin - inverse, perhaps, but made from the same basic material.

Eisinger clearly thinks that such a desegregation of the discourses would be not only more accurate, but also more productive. After pointing out the postmodern retort to customary modernist claims about the universality of the human experience, Eisinger reprimands both sides, arguing that "a middle ground between the glib universalizing of modernism and the Balkanization of the human psyche must be found." Not the only instance of such finger-wagging, Eisinger considers the advertising blow-ups of artist Richard Prince, debating whether or not Prince undermines the original significance of the images. On the idea that the alteration of discourse alone changes the meaning and therefore the message of the works, Eisinger interjects, "But perhaps this is a good idea taken too far. Perhaps this is a good point at which to remember the modernist concern for criticism that is true to the image it addresses. That meaning arises in discourse does not mean that one can sensibly contradict an image through interpretive discourse."

The best example of what Eisinger wants to achieve in this book is found in the penultimate section, where he details point by point how modernism continues to be relevant today, in serving to counteract and balance the assertions of postmodernism:

If postmodernism reveals the blindness of modernism to the importance of discourse in the creation of meaning, then a modernist point of view may remind us that nonverbal meanings still exist in art . . . If postmodernism posits a fragmented, unoriginal self constructed from already given codes and symbols propagated by the mass media, then modernism may serve as a reference point for the inventive, subjective self . . .

This is the only instance where Eisinger so explicitly argues a contemporary place for modernism, and the only time we are given to understand a possible motive for his unrelenting - and thoroughly un-modern - interest in postmodernism: that is, not only to detail its critical movements with a purely anthologizing eye, but to catalog with reference to the present, demonstrating modernism's ultimate value to contemporary discourse.

We might infer that such an inclusive point of view is not simply a matter of correcting a widely-held misperception of postmodernism, but actually may be about the future of art itself. A clue to this comes in a discussion of Smith's frustration at the chaotic nature of the art world in his time, when Eisinger conjectures that this perception of chaos may be attributable to "what Arthur Danto has described in a Hegelian sense as the end of art history, the playing out of the last great historical project of art, the one that came after the pursuit of naturalism, that being the investigation by art of its own nature." Eisinger does not elaborate on this point, but from this it is not hard to extrapolate that he not only finds the polar opposition of modernism and postmodernism to be an illusion, but an illusion that, if left to its own devices and followed to its ultimate conclusion, is potentially destructive as well. If modernism may be perceived as a discrete entity that is rejected in entirety by postmodernism, then postmodernism may similarly be a discrete entity, that according to its own tenets will eventually dry up and become irrelevant, thus signaling the "end of art," or at the very least a rendering peripheral of all art theory. It is from such postmodern chaos and nihilism that Trace and Transformation seems to want to rescue photography by reacquainting photographers with a more accurate understanding of their own history as a long line of interconnected movements, each arising from the last. Akin to the scientific assertion that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, Eisinger seems here to be asserting that the same is true of art and its theoretical underpinnings - that art can neither be created nor destroyed, so much as it simply evolves, changing form, changing name and shape from movement to movement and presumably from modernism to postmodernism to whatever follows.

Eisinger's approach, however, is problematic. When dealing strictly with modernism he is in his element: the discussions are clear and linear, informative and insightful, contained and summarizing in tone. Specific examples of photographic work are sparing - for the entire history of photography's criticism we are given a total of nine illustrations - but they are sufficient to support the discussion. When postmodernism enters the picture Eisinger's tone remains even: analytical, selective, digging "narrowly and deeply rather than widely and more shallowly." As Eisinger laments, the problem is that there is a notable difference between the volume and quality of photo criticism before the advent of postmodernism and after it. As many have done, Eisinger could conceivably do a separate book on the history of photography criticism of the last 20 years, with the same amount of information that he had for the entire history of photography. As a result, his discussions of Allan Sekula, Susan Sontag, Solomon-Godeau and Crimp lay a comparatively shallow groundwork upon which to bring modernism into the contemporary discourse.

This shakiness is compounded by Eisinger's inexplicable reluctance to come all the way up to the present, choosing instead to end his history in the mid-'80s, 10 years before the book was published. As a result of this omission, obvious counter-arguments are left out of his criticisms of postmodernism, for example the fact that many "conceptual" artists did succeed in circumventing the museum structure and undermining the authority of the unique and special artist. Felix Gonzales-Torres's piles of photographic hand-outs answer the criticism of postmodern photographic work as being hypocritically "precious." More generally, the questioning of museum validation of artwork extends back to a long tradition of performative, earthwork and alternative display strategies. Simply because Eisinger discovers a hypocritical strain in Levine's work does not negate an entire history of artwork that has strived to undermine or reveal the hegemony of the museum/gallery system. What of the innumerable artists who are working with appropriated photography in a manner that does indeed play off original associations while bringing new ones to bear through a shift in context - Annette Messager or Christian Boltanski, for example?

Of course none of these artists would be included in a strict discussion of "photography." Herein lies one of the most fundamental problems with Eisinger's attempt to merge modernism with postmodernism: his failure to identify the explosive effect that postmodern theory has on the very definition of "photography." Although many of the issues he raises have been played out in the art world, they have not necessarily been played out within the parallel "photography world." For modernism, the separation of medium for purposes of defining "core" attributes is fundamental, and when postmodernism renders medium all but irrelevant except as a means to an end, the playing field changes so radically that we cannot stay within Eisinger's parameters if we wish to follow the discussion.

This is a different type of desegregation than Eisinger has in mind and one that has already been taking place for some time. Consequently, after bringing up and partially detailing a history of postmodern criticism in his conclusion, the failure to even mention the quintessentially postmodern phenomenon of installation artwork, despite its pivotal importance to postmodernist criticism, and the fact that this is in particular the direction of much photography today, is glaring. Although he briefly mentions artists from other media "using" photography toward their own ends, he does not discuss at all the artists who turned to other media to use with - or in place of - photography, nor does he discuss the implications of either phenomenon.

Eisinger seems to want to save photography history from the blanketing, and sometimes inaccurate assertions of a totalitarian postmodern theory, while still retaining certain elements of postmodernism that he finds interesting and effective counterpoints to modernism. What he fails to recognize is that the ideals and institutions of photography as an autonomous discipline with distinct boundaries - the condition so beloved by modernists - dissolves with postmodernism, leaving us wondering for whom the history is being saved.

EVE OGDEN SCHAUB is the Associate Editor of the Manchester Journal in Manchester, VT, and writes frequently about art.