The first transnational history of photography's accommodation in the art museum
Photography was long regarded as a "middle-brow" art by the art institution. Yet, at the turn of the millennium, it became the hot, global art of our time. In this book-part institutional history, part account of shifting photographic theories and practices-Alexandra Moschovi tells the story of photography's accommodation in and as contemporary art in the art museum. Archival research of key exhibitions and the contrasting collecting policies of MoMA, Tate, the Guggenheim, the V&A, and the Centre Pompidou offer new insights into how art as photography and photography as art have been collected and exhibited since the 1930s. Moschovi argues that this accommodation not only changed photography's status in art, culture, and society, but also played a significant role in the rebranding of the art museum as a cultural and social site.

This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

About the Author
Alexandra Moschovi is associate professor of photography and digital media in the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries at the University of Sunderland.

Reviews

It retraces the history of how photography entered the art museum, a place where it initially did not have access to, and how this history has been a local as well as global phenomenon, as demonstrated by the five case studies that constitute the core of this book: MoMA, Tate, the Guggenheim, the V&A, and the Centre Pompidou. Moschovi unpacks these histories in great detail and a sharp eye for context, but also with great writing pleasure and craft, which makes her study almost a page-turner. [...] Moschovi succeeds in writing a new form of art history, with museums and photography as key players, which strikes the right balance between internal (artistic, historical) and external (political, financial, social) perspectives and concerns. Two or more worlds, perhaps, but the author gives us the best of them by bringing them together in this innovative study.Jan Baetens, Leonardo
Reviews Archive, April 2021

The result of two decades of research into art institutions' engagement with photography in all its forms, this book is a detailed and archivally-engaged examination of photography's accommodation in the art museum.
Mary Pelletier, The Classic Platform, 26 May 2021

Dans tous les cas, cet ouvrage est dense, certes, mais il n'interessera pas que les amateurs de musees ou les specialistes des institutions. C'est d'abord une histoire de l'histoire de la photographie.
Stewen Corvez, Critique d'art [En ligne], 4 juni 2021, URL : http://journals.openedition.org/critiquedart/78003

This is an important and interesting book. [...] this book is a real contribution to exhibition histories and/or curatorial studies, with a particular focus on large national museums. [...] Moschovi's attention to the tensions between modes, and their non-resolution as photography is established in each museum, is what makes this book so fascinating.

Alison Green, Source, Issue 106, Autumn 2021
https://www.source.ie/archive/issue106/is106contents.php

Mit Alexandra Moschovis 'A Gust of Photo-Philia' liegt nun zum ersten Mal eine breit ange legte systematische Rekonstruktion dieser Ereignisse vor. Genau wie Grundberg konzentriert sich auch Moschovi auf das kunstleri sche Feld der Fotografie, im Unterschied zu ihm oeffnet sie den Radius ihres Interesses aber weit uber Manhattan hinaus: In funf ausgedehnten Fallstudien, die je ein Kapitel des Buches ausmachen, zeichnet sie die Entwicklungen in funf international renommierten Ausstellungshausern nach: Neben dem MoMA und dem Guggen heim Museum in New York sind dies das Victoria and Albert und die Tate in London sowie das Musee National d'Art Modern im Pariser Centre Pompidou.
Steffen Siegel, Bd. 3 Nr. 4 (2022): 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beitrage zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur, https://doi.org/10.11588/xxi.2022.4.91686

Book Information
ISBN 9789462702424
Author Alexandra Moschovi
Format Paperback
Page Count 332
Imprint Leuven University Press
Publisher Leuven University Press
Weight(grams) 1017g
Dimensions(mm) 230mm * 170mm * 20mm