by Jon Lackman | 28 May 2009 | Books, Contemporary, Photography
In caa.reviews, Matthew Biro considers a new book by Michael Fried:
Two related projects are combined in Michael Fried’s well-observed, conceptually ambitious, and beautifully written new book, Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before. First, the text presents a formal and theoretical justification of tableau photography since the late 1970s … Second, Fried puts forward an important reevaluation of his own critical and historical account of modernism, demonstrating its relevance for a time—and a medium—seemingly far removed from his modernist concerns …
For Fried, the importance of contemporary tableau photography—defined as large-scale photographs intended to be hung on walls and viewed as paintings—can only be revealed in light of the development, breakdown, and eventual (modernist) transformation of the antitheatrical tradition in painting. This new type of photograph—which, in comparison to traditional photographs, claimed the viewer’s attention in a new way, and which simultaneously emphasized its artificiality or staged character—revived the absorptive ideal while at the same time acknowledging the various crises with which it had to contend. In addition, it responded to the development of Minimalist and Postminimalist practices as well as the supposed rout of “modernist absorption” (a formulation that Fried does not use in “Art and Objecthood”), i.e., the failure of the values of “presentness” and “instantaneousness” to hold the field in the 1960s and 1970s …
The great importance of Fried’s book lies in the fact that he presents a radically different understanding of the significant characteristics and concerns of art photography than has previously been offered. Not only does he articulate a convincing alternative to the account of the artistic use of the medium developed by postmodern thought, but he also offers an important corrective to the naïve realism that mars certain forms of social-historical photographic analysis. The main flaw in Fried’s study is its lack of concrete non-art-or-photography-related historical analysis, a deficiency that is most strikingly felt in his readings of Wall, Delahaye, Gursky, and Demand, in whose work the social and the political loom so large … Also missing from Fried’s important book is a thorough reflection on how photography still distinguishes itself from painting.
