How You Look at it: Photographs of the 20th CenturyEugène Atget's Parisian storefronts paired with Thomas Struth's desolate views of Wall Street; Charles Sheeler's studies of Ford Motor Plant contrasted with Bernd and Hilda Becher's Blast Furnace series; Walker Evans' sharecroppers alongside Rineke Djikstra's troubled late-twentieth-century teens. These are just some of the surprising and delightful editorial matches to be found in How You Look At It: Photographs of the Twentieth Century. Intelligently and carefully edited by Thomas Weski and Heinz Liesbrock, this superb volume makes an argument for photography as the definitive art form of the twentieth century by presenting whole series of works by the medium's pioneers, instead of isolated individual photographs. Arranged thematically rather chronologically, the connections between seemingly disparate bodies of work are made clear. Cindy Sherman's early film stills sit easily across the page from Lee Friedlander's sly shadow self portraits; Robert Adams' desolate suburban sprawls lead a path to Larry Clark's strung-out dopers in Tulsa several pages later. Interspersed throughout the book are reproductions of relevant art piecesso that a Mark Rothko painting flanks a piece of Robert Frank's The Americans and Christian Boltanski's L'album de la famille introduces Nicholas Nixon's The Brown Sisters. Published to accompany the exhibition of the same name, How You Look At It is a comprehensive and unprecedented look at the century of photography. |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Albert Renger-Patzsch Albumen silver print Andreas Gursky Angeles Art solo artistic August Sander Berlin Bernd Bibliography Selected Bonn Brassaï camera century Charles Sheeler color Contemporary Art Diane Arbus documenta Düsseldorf Essen Eugène Atget Exhibitions Selected Fotografie Fotografien Foundation Photography Collection Gallery of Canada Garry Winogrand Gelatin silver prints Gift of Phyllis Heinz Liesbrock images John Szarkowski Judith Joy Ross Karl Blossfeldt Kassel cat Kunst Kunsthalle Kunstverein landscape Lee Friedlander Michailov Modern Art Montreal Munich Musée Carnavalet Museum Folkwang Museum of Art Museum of Contemporary Museum of Modern National Gallery Nicholas Nixon Ottawa painting Paris solo Paris/Joffre Parsons Foundation Photography Paul Getty Museum Paul Strand Phyllis Lambert Private collection quiet reality Robert Adams Robert Frank solo exhi solo exhibition/cat solo exhibition/tour/cat Sprengel Museum Sprengel Museum Hannover Stephen Shore Text Thomas Struth Thomas Weski tion undated Untitled Walker Evans William Eggleston York solo exhibition