Contemporary Photography and the Garden


Book Description

Gardens have inspired artists for hundreds of years. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, photographers ranging from Eugène Atget to Edward Steichen were drawn to gardens for their beauty and their metaphorical associations. A century later, in the mid-1980s, an unusually large number of artists returned to the garden as a subject for their photography. Whether presenting it as a haven of tranquility and lyrical beauty or drawing on it as a dark visual metaphor for the manipulation of nature, these photographs express the artists' investigation of the forms, atmosphere, and symbolism of the garden. The essays bring historical and contextual insight to the fascination many contemporary artists have with this popular subject.




The Photographer in the Garden


Book Description

From Versailles to the home vegetable garden, from worlds imagined by artists to food production recorded by journalists, The Photographer in the Garden traces the garden's rich history in photography and delights readers with spectacular photographs. An informative essay from curator Jamie M. Allen and commentaries by Sarah Anne McNear broaden our understanding of photography and explore our unique relationship with nature through the garden. This is a sublime book bringing together some of history's most stunning photography.




Within this Garden


Book Description

Photographs by Ruth Thorne-ThomsenIntroduction by Denise Miller-ClarkPoem by Mark Strand For Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, photography is theatre: the alleged credibility of the photographic image signifies to her a myth by which to "palm off fantasy as reality" while leading us to the kingdom where the human psyche dwells. Using a pinhole camera she constructed to achieve infinite depth of field, Thorne-Thompsen-a third generation woman photographer-creates images of the spirits quest for integration. In compositions at once mysterious, witty, and erudite, Thorne-Thomsen deftly employs archetyping, appropriation, and manipulation to invent landscapes where the individual and collective unconscious merge in an alluring and spirited dance. Ruth Thorne-Thomsen is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowships. Denise Miller-Clark has been director of The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, since 1986, and Mark Strand is a Poet Laureate of the United States.




Deceits and Fantasies


Book Description




Contemporary Photography and Theory


Book Description

Contemporary Photography and Theory offers an essential overview of some of the key critical debates in fine art photography today. Building on a foundational understanding of photography, it offers an in-depth discussion of five topic areas: identity, landscape and place, the politics of representation, psychoanalysis and the event. Written in an accessible style, it introduces the critical literature relevant to photography that has emerged over recent decades. Moving beyond seminal works by writers such as Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, and Susan Sontag, it enables readers to explore an extended canon of theorists including Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler and Giorgio Agamben. The book is illustrated throughout and analyses a range of works by established and emergent artists in order to show how these theoretical concepts are central to understanding contemporary photography. These 15 short essays encourage readers to apply critical thinking to both their own work and that of others. They are the perfect starting point for essays as well being of suitable length for assigned readings, making this the ideal resource for learning about contemporary photography and theory.




Anthotypes – Explore the darkroom in your garden and make photographs using plants


Book Description

Learn to make prints using plants – an environmentally safe process in this book dedicated to anthotypes. Includes a comprehensive reference section on plants. About the anthotype book It is possible to print photographs using nothing but juice extracted from the petals of flowers, the peel from fruits and pigments from plants. This book will show you how it is done, and expand your creative horizons with plenty of examples from artists working with anthotypes today. Anthotypes will simply make you look at plants in a whole new light. And, if that is not enough, anthotype is a totally environmentally friendly photographic process. From Malin Fabbri, author Anthotypes will make you look at plants in a whole new light. It will show you how to make photographs from the juice of flowers, fruits and plants, using a totally environmentally friendly photographic process. Anthotype is a very delicate photographic process and an environmentally friendly way of making prints using nothing other than the photosensitive material of plants found in the garden, the flower market or in the wild. All you need to add is water, sunshine, inspiration and patience – a lot of patience! The process is very basic and simple. Utilizing nature’s own coloring pigments from flower petals, berries, plants, vegetables or even spices, images are produced using the action of light. The natural pigment is used to create a photographic image. What could be better? Your impact on the natural environment is virtually non-existent, and you can carry out your art with a clear conscience. Anthotyping is the ultimate environmentally friendly photo process.




Private Places


Book Description

"In Private Places, Brad Temkin is attracted not to the public open spaces, but to the small, intimate gardens of Chicago's citizens. He writes: "The small gardens have bits and pieces of the people who own them: found objects that are dear to them, keepsakes, statues, and personal items that reveal the people behind them."" "Chicagoans, like Americans everywhere, look to the garden as a place of refuge, a place where one can read, meditate, relax, heal, and know the bounty and beauty to be found in good soil, color, and composition. Using his camera, Brad Temkin portrays a wide array of Chicago gardens that reveal for us the magic to be found in such private places." --Book Jacket.




Erik Madigan Heck: The Garden


Book Description

A sumptuous clothbound portrayal of a family in Edenic reverie In The Garden, American photographer Erik Madigan Heck (born 1983) portrays his wife and two young sons in a variety of richly colorful surrounds. The photographs draw upon Catholic iconography and other mythic pictorial traditions to develop a color-based narrative evocative of spiritual archetypes and the processes of dissolution and rebirth. The series moves through a singular world--a fairy tale in which figures and settings become tableaux for hyper-concentrated tonal arrangements. Images are composited and oversaturated to create painterly and surreal compositions in which the familiar and fantastic are merged. Completing its aesthetic fantasy through lavish clothes, gestures of dreamlike poignancy and an Edenic environment, The Gardenexpresses the supramundane innocence and spontaneity that art makes possible--a life lived in the direct, immediate experience of beauty. Shot predominantly at the family's home in New England, the series initially elicits comparisons with other contemporary photography confronting family life, such as Sally Mann's Immediate Familyor the work of Elinor Carucci. But although the subjects of Heck's photographs are ostensibly his family, The Garden's real subject matter is color and the aesthetic possibilities of photography to create what it captures.




The Photograph as Contemporary Art (Fourth) (World of Art)


Book Description

A new edition of the definitive title in the field of contemporary art photography by one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, Charlotte Cotton. In the twenty-first century, photography has come of age as a contemporary art form. Almost two centuries after photographic technology was first invented, the art world has fully embraced it as a legitimate medium, equal in status to painting and sculpture. The Photograph as Contemporary Art introduces the extraordinary range of contemporary art photography, from portraits of intimate life to highly staged directorial spectacles. Arranged thematically, the book reproduces work from a vast span of photographers, including Andreas Gursky, Barbara Kasten, Catherine Opie, Cindy Sherman, Deana Lawson, Diana Markosian, Elle Pérez, Gregory Halpern, Lieko Shiga, Nan Goldin, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Pixy Liao, Susan Meiselas, and Zanele Muholi. This fully revised and updated new edition revitalizes previous discussion of works from the 2000s through dialogue with more recent practice. Alongside previously featured work, Charlotte Cotton celebrates a new generation of artists who are shaping photography as a culturally significant medium for our current sociopolitical climate. A superb resource, The Photograph as Contemporary Art is a uniquely broad and diverse reflection of the field.