Contemporary Photography

Catalog description

Prerequisite: Social and Aesthetic History of Photography. Digital technology today allows the combination of still images and moving images with unprecedented ease. As a result, the boundaries that once existed between still photographers, filmmakers, and videomakers are becoming increasingly blurred. By examining a wide range of visual materials, both historic and contemporary, this class will attempt to understand the changing relation between the still photographic image and the moving image. We will concentrate on three major areas: (1) We will examine the rarely seen films made by celebrated still photographers such as Paul Strand, Man Ray, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Robert Frank, William Klein, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Helen Levitt, and Susan Meiselas. (2) We will consider a number of classic films and videos which make innovative use of the still photograph, the freeze-frame image, and the static camera. These filmmakers include Dziga Vertov, Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini, Andy Warhol, Chris Marker, Hollis Frampton, Bill Viola, and James Benning. (3) We will discuss a selected group of contemporary artists whose work imaginatively embraces both still photographs and moving images. These artists include Isaac Julian, Douglas Gordon, Lorna Simpson, Stan Douglas, Eyal Sivan, Tracey Moffat, and David Claerbout. Throughout the class, we will explore an unusually wide range of visual materials: still photographs, photo books, feature films, avant-garde films, documentaries, and artists' films and videos. Class readings will introduce a range of critical approaches to the relation between the still and moving image, and will also highlight key works and visual innovators.