Description
Clearly written, and illustrated with well-chosen images, Disappearing Witness describes the significant paradigm shift in photography over the course of the twentieth century, namely the move from direct observation of the world through the lens to a more critical relationship between the act of photographic observation and picture-making. Gretchen Garner's unusual and welcome premise is well-reasoned and persuasive. -- A. D. Coleman
About the Author
Gretchen Garner is a photographer and independent scholar. She has taught photography and history of photography at Michigan's Grand Valley State University and at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, served as editor of Exposure and as photography editor of the New Art Examiner, and has curated exhibitions at museums in Minnesota and Michigan. She lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Reviews
Very few histories of photography read like novels... Disappearing Witness is... a pleasurable experience in form and content... Garner not only knows her subject but understands it: she moves with extreme ease in it and takes us for an interesting guided tour, one that does not pretend to be blandly objective but clearly defines her learned vision. -- Bruno Chalifour Afterimage This handsome and well-illustrated book surveys the history of American photography since the 1920s, arguing that the 1960s marked the beginning of a profound shift in photographic practice... Garner writes in a clear, straightforward manner, laying out her two-part argument in a series of topical chapters. For the pre-1960s period, the age of 'spontaneous witness,' she focuses on fine art photography, documentary photography, and the use of photography in the great picture magazines. For the later period, she organizes her chapters around the issues of artistic style in order to emphasize her argument about photographers' increasing disengagement with the world and their growing interest in self-expression... It is the bold historian who even attempts such an argument, and Disappearing Witness provides believers and doubters alike with a clear structure against which to test their own ideas about the shape of photography over the past ninety years. -- Martha A. Sandweiss History: Reviews of New Books This well-written, readable book would be best used as a course resource in 20th-century photography. Choice 2004
Book Information
ISBN 9780801871672
Author Gretchen Garner
Format Hardback
Page Count 328
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 1406g
Dimensions(mm) 254mm * 178mm * 35mm