Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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 Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2011 Appeals to people interested in artist's use of photography and in contemporary art Tracks the efflorescence of photography as one of the most important mediums for contemporary art Explores the relation between recent art, theory and aesthetics, for which photography serves as an important test case Includes a number of the essays with previously unpublished photographs Artists discussed include Ed Ruscha, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Douglas Huebler, Mel Bochner, Sherrie Levine, Roni Horn, Thomas Demand, and Jeff Wall

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Notes on contributors (p. vi)
• 1 Introduction: Photography after conceptual art (p. 1)
• 2 Auto-maticity: Ruscha and performative photography (p. 12)
• 3 Ed Ruscha, Heidegger, and deadpan photography (p. 28)
• 4 Subject, object, mimesis: The aesthetic world of the Bechers' photography (p. 50)
• 5 Exit ghost: Douglas Huebler's face value (p. 70)
• 6 Productive misunderstandings: Interpreting Mel Bochner's theory of photography (p. 86)
• 7 Roni Horn's Icelandic encyclopedia (p. 108)
• 8 Thomas Demand, Jeff Wall and Sherrie Levine: Deforming 'Pictures' (p. 130)
• 9 Almost Merovingian: On Jeff Wall's relation to nearly everything (p. 153)
• 10 Morning cleaning: Jeff Wall and The Large Glass (p. 172)
• Index (p. 193)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

The role of photography in the visual arts has changed dramatically since the mid-20th century, partly because of the emergence of conceptual art in the 1960s, after which the boundaries between photography as "document" or as "medium" blurred profoundly. In an edited volume that provides a strong emphasis on theoretical and aesthetic inquiry, Costello (Univ. of Warwick, UK) and Iversen (Univ. of Essex, UK) address this important phase in the history of photography. They bring together an engaging collection of well-illustrated critical writings by contemporary scholars who advance the debate about some of the key photographers of this era--such as Ed Ruscha, Mel Bochner, and Jeff Wall--to explore the manner in which their works both participate in and respond to the game-changing nature of conceptual art. In so doing, the editors also help frame the debate about the renewed prominence of pictorial photography in the 1990s and beyond. This volume is indispensable for theorists and historians of photography, as well as those concerned with post-1960s contemporary visual culture. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. M. R. Freeman Western Oregon University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Diarmuid Costello is Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick and Chair of the British Society of Aesthetics. He co-edited (with Dominic Willsdon) The Life and Death of Images: Ethics and Aesthetics (2008), and (with Jonathan Vickery) Art: Key Contemporary Thinkers (2007). His articles have appeared in British Journal of Aesthetics, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Critical Inquiry, Rivista di Estetica, and Angelaki. On Photography is forthcoming.
Margaret Iversen is Professor of Art History and Theory, University of Essex. Her books include: Beyond Pleasure: Freud, Lacon, Barthes (2007); Alois Riegl: Art History and Theory (1993); Mary Kelly, co-authored with Douglas Crimp and Homi Bhabha (1997); and Chance (2010). Writing Art History, co-authored with Stephen Melville, is forthcoming.