FPjohn
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http://www.thenation.com/article/156634/thin-artifact-photography-and-suffering
Yours
Frank Johnston
Yours
Frank Johnston
Nation: The Cruel Radiance
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Papercut
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Good review, I thought.
I've just finished the "Polemics" section of Linfield's book. So far I find it excellent. Reasoned, lucid, and yet passionate about photos. She may, as the review suggests, "oversimplify" at times. (The reviewer takes her to task for omitting to mention Sontag's semi-retraction of some of her harsher assessments in _On Photography_, but to be fair, other critics do not seem to mention Sontag's softening stance either, but prefer to push her earlier line of argument even further, endlessly beating the po-mo drum. In the arena of photo criticism, early Sontag is canonized and her later doubts about her early statements remain ignored.) But, overall, I find her points to be well taken and her call for a space for emotional engagement with images is a much needed corrective to the dominant post-modern suspicion and sourness toward documentary photography.
I'm looking forward to finishing the book as it sounds from the review that the later sections are better and more firmly rooted in images (as opposed to critical theory), though that may have to wait several months now.
I've just finished the "Polemics" section of Linfield's book. So far I find it excellent. Reasoned, lucid, and yet passionate about photos. She may, as the review suggests, "oversimplify" at times. (The reviewer takes her to task for omitting to mention Sontag's semi-retraction of some of her harsher assessments in _On Photography_, but to be fair, other critics do not seem to mention Sontag's softening stance either, but prefer to push her earlier line of argument even further, endlessly beating the po-mo drum. In the arena of photo criticism, early Sontag is canonized and her later doubts about her early statements remain ignored.) But, overall, I find her points to be well taken and her call for a space for emotional engagement with images is a much needed corrective to the dominant post-modern suspicion and sourness toward documentary photography.
I'm looking forward to finishing the book as it sounds from the review that the later sections are better and more firmly rooted in images (as opposed to critical theory), though that may have to wait several months now.
