Charlotte Cotton

From conceptual art’s use of the banal and ‘artless’ snapshot to the carefully constructed tableaux of Jeff Wall, 'The Photograph as Contemporary Art' considers the full range of ways that today’s artists engage with photography to make art.

The Photograph as Contemporary Art

Charlotte Cotton looks at the many different ways contemporary artists have embraced photography. The text explains the differences between artists such as Andreas Gursky, Nan Goldin and Gillian Wearing, and introduces the main techniques and personalities of the medium.

The photograph as contemporary art

Fotografia jako sztuka wspolczesna

Alex Klein

November 2007- February 2009

Words Without Pictures

Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott

Photography Is Magic draws together current ideas about the use of photography as an invaluable medium in the contemporary art world. Edited and with an essay by Charlotte Cotton, this critical publication surveys over eighty artists, all of whom are engaged with experimental ideas concerning photographic practice, as the contemporary landscape is currently being reshaped through digital techniques. We are shown the scope of photographic possibilities in the context of the contemporary creative process. From Michele Abeles and Walead Beshty to Daniel Gordon and Matt Lipps, Cotton has selected artists who are consciously reframing photographic practices using mixed media, appropriation, and a recalibration of analog processes. Photography Is Magic provides the reader with an engaging physical experience and is designed for younger photo aficionados, students, and anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of contemporary photography.

Photography is Magic

Marina Chao

Copublished by Aperture and the International Center of Photography

On Photography and the Configuration of Self

Public, Private, Secret

Viviane Sassen

Nanda Van Den Berg

Bringing together seventeen years of work in the fashion world, this eye-catching volume features selections from Sassen's award-winning series and campaigns for fashion designers and magazines. It includes essays that offer a context for Sassen's work in the history of fashion photography as well as a bibliography of nearly all her fashion series.

In and Out of Fashion

A new edition of the definitive title in the field of contemporary art photography by one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, Charlotte Cotton. In the twenty-first century, photography has come of age as a contemporary art form. Almost two centuries after photographic technology was first invented, the art world has fully embraced it as a legitimate medium, equal in status to painting and sculpture. The Photograph as Contemporary Art introduces the extraordinary range of contemporary art photography, from portraits of intimate life to highly staged directorial spectacles. Arranged thematically, the book reproduces work from a vast span of photographers, including Andreas Gursky, Barbara Kasten, Catherine Opie, Cindy Sherman, Deana Lawson, Diana Markosian, Elle Pérez, Gregory Halpern, Lieko Shiga, Nan Goldin, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Pixy Liao, Susan Meiselas, and Zanele Muholi. This fully revised and updated new edition revitalizes previous discussion of works from the 2000s through dialogue with more recent practice. Alongside previously featured work, Charlotte Cotton celebrates a new generation of artists who are shaping photography as a culturally significant medium for our current sociopolitical climate. A superb resource, The Photograph as Contemporary Art is a uniquely broad and diverse reflection of the field.

Francesco Zanot

Frits Gierstberg

Catalog of a traveling exhibition held in Barcelona, May 28 - August 28, 2016, Madrid, September 12, 2016 - January 15, 2017, Turin, May 11 - August 13, 2017, and Rotterdam, September 9, 2017-January 7, 2018.

Bruce Davidson

Photography Is Magic draws together current ideas about the use of photography as an invaluable medium in the contemporary art world. Edited and with an essay by leading photography writer and curator Charlotte Cotton, this critical publication surveys the work of a diverse group of artists, many working at the borders of the "art world" and the "photography world," all of whom are engaged with experimental ideas concerning photographic practice and its place in a shifting photographic landscape being reshaped by digital techniques. Readers are shown the scope of photographic possibilities in the context of the contemporary creative process. From Michele Abeles and Walead Beshty to Daniel Gordon and Matthew Lipps, Cotton has selected artists who are consciously reframing photographic practices using mixed media, appropriation and a recalibration of analog processes. Cotton brings these artists together around the idea of magic, the properties of illusion and material transformation that uniquely characterize photography. Beautifully produced and critically rigorous, Photography Is Magic is aimed at younger photo aficionados, students and anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of contemporary photography. It includes images and text by more than 80 artists, including Sara Cwynar, Shannon Ebner, Annette Kelm, Josh Kline, Elad Lassry, Jon Rafman, Shirana Shahbazi and Sara VanDerBeek, among many others.

Photography Is Magic (Signed Edition)

The groundbreaking images created in London's celebrated commercial darkroom tell the fascinating story of one of the most productive, experimental, and colorful eras in fashion photography. For more than 30 years, Brian Dowling's studio was the birthplace of some of the most remarkable fashion photography ever created. In his Islington darkroom, using specialist analog equipment, Dowling shepherded amazing images from negative to paper captured by the likes of Anton Corbijn, Juergen Teller, and Nick Knight. Dowling's BDI studio was also responsible for a number of technical innovations in color photography, paving the way for many of today's digital effects. This tribute to Dowling includes extensive interviews, commentary, testimonials from his clients, and numerous examples of iconic haute couture photographs that passed through his hands. In addition, a series of photographs specially commissioned for this volume demonstrate Dowling's groundbreaking techniques: cross-processing, masking, filtering, layering light, and color fades. Dowling's hands-on achievements and alchemic talents are showcased in this beautiful ode to fashion photography.

Fashion Image Revolution

Words Without Pictures was originally conceived of by curator Charlotte Cotton as a means of creating spaces for thoughtful and urgent discourse around current issues in photography. Every month for a year, beginning in November 2007, an artist, educator, critic, art historian, or curator was invited to contribute a short, un-illustrated, and opinionated essay about an aspect of photography that, in his or her view, was either emerging or in the process of being rephrased. Each piece was available on the Words Without Pictures website for one month and was accompanied by a discussion forum focused on its specific topic. Over the course of its month-long life, each essay received both invited and unsolicited responses from a wide range of interested partiesstudents, photographers active in the commercial sector, bloggers, critics, historians, artists of all kinds, educators, publishers, and photography enthusiasts alikeall coming together to consider the issues at hand. All of these essays, responses, and other provocations are gathered together in a volume designed by David Reinfurt of Dexter Sinister. Previously issued as a print-on-demand title, Aperture is pleased to present Words Without Pictures to the trade for this first time as part of the Aperture Ideas series.

Elizabeth A. T. Smith

Hilton Als

Douglas Fogle

Helen Molesworth

Long awaited, the first survey of the work of one of America's foremost contemporary fine art photographers For almost 40 years, Catherine Opie has been documenting with psychological acuity the cultural and geographic identity of contemporary America. This unique artist monograph presents a compelling visual narrative of Opie's work since the early 1980s, pairing images across bodies of work to form a full picture of her artistic vision. With more than 300 beautiful illustrations and made in close collaboration with Opie, the book marks a turning point in the consideration of this artist's work to date.

Catherine Opie

Offers a survey of contemporary art photography that includes discussions of the eight categories within the discipline, profiles of prominent artists, and photographs with detailed explanations.

La fotografia come arte contemporanea. Ediz. a colori

Text mainly consists of interviews with photographers, stylists and art directors.

Imperfect Beauty

Richard Billingham's Ray's a Laugh is considered one of the most important contemporary photobooks from Britain. Centered around Billingham's working-class family who live in a cramped Birmingham high-rise tenement apartment and his father Ray - a chronic alcoholic - these candid snapshots describe their daily lives in a visual diary that is raw, intimate, touching and often uncomfortably humorous. Books on Books #18 contains every page spread from this classic book including a contemporary essay by Charlotte Cotton.--Publisher.

Charlotte Cotton

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