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  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and aesthetics, for which photography serves as an important test case  Includes a number of the essays with previously unpublished photographs Artists discussed include Ed Ruscha, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Douglas Huebler, Mel Bochner, Sherrie Levine, Roni Horn, Thomas Demand, and Jeff Wall

Notes on contributors vi 1 Introduction: Photography after conceptual art 1 Diarmuid Costello and Margaret Iversen 2 Auto-maticity: Ruscha and performative photography 12 Margaret Iversen 3 Ed Ruscha, Heidegger, and deadpan photography 28 Aron Vinegar 4 Subject, object, mimesis: The aesthetic world of the Bechers’ photography 50 Sarah E. James 5 Exit ghost: Douglas Huebler’s face value 70 Gordon Hughes 6 Productive misunderstandings: Interpreting Mel Bochner’s theory of photography 86 Luke Skrebowski 7 Roni Horn’s Icelandic encyclopedia 108 Mark Godfrey 8 Thomas Demand, Jeff Wall and Sherrie Levine: Deforming ‘Pictures’ 130 Tamara Trodd 9 Almost Merovingian: On Jeff Wall’s relation to nearly everything 153 Wolfgang Bruckle 10 Morning cleaning: Jeff Wall and The Large Glass 172 Christine Conley Index 193