Photography After Conceptual Art

Photography After Conceptual Art presents a series of original essays that address substantive theoretical, historical, and aesthetic issues raised by post-1960s photography as a mainstream artistic medium. It explores the relation between recent art, theory and aesthetics, for which photography serves as an important test case.

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Although many believe that photography has emerged as post-conceptual art's pre-eminent medium, there is as yet little consensus about the state of contemporary photographic art. What exactly is at stake? Photography After Conceptual Art presents a series of original essays that address substantive theoretical, historical, and aesthetic issues raised by post 1960s photography as a mainstream artistic medium - particularly in light of the oft-heard critique of the arts' 'post-medium' condition. Contributions trace photographic art's remarkable transformation from the 'non-aesthetic' uses of the medium associated with various conceptual and post-conceptual practices of the 1960s and 70s to the large scale pictorial colour images that have dominated the medium since the 90s. The theoretical and aesthetic implications of this historical metamorphosis are considered from a number of conflicting theoretical perspectives. Among the influential artists discussed are Ed Ruscha, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Douglas Huebler, Mel Bochner, Sherrie Levine, Roni Horn, Thomas Demand, and Jeff Wall - whose work is considered from the perspectives of Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, and Michael Fried, and several others. Photography After Conceptual Art offers an insightful and illuminating snapshot of the current state of debate in the realm of photographic art.