Photography in Flux: The Global Contemporary

This essay reflects on the conditions of contemporary art photography as a global phenomenon with an expanding international network of production, dissemination and discourse. Este ensayo reflexiona sobre las condiciones de la fotografía artística contemporánea como fenómeno global de una red internacional en expansión tanto de producción, difusión como de discurso. Este ensaio reflete sobre as condições da fotografia artística contemporânea como fenômeno global de uma rede internacional em expansão de produção, difusão e discurso

¿Por qué fotografía artística?

Reseña del libro de Lucy Soutter ¿Por qué fotografía artística

Da fotografia como arte à arte como fotografia: a experiência do Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP na década de 1970

Este ensaio visa sistematizar os primeiros resultados de uma pesquisa, ainda em curso, sobre o processo de legitimação da fotografia pelo sistema de arte no Brasil, cujo foco principal é o museu. Os museus de arte da cidade de São Paulo foram escolhidos para dar início a essa investigação. Primeiramente, será abordada, em linhas gerais, a presença da fotografia no Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo e na Bienal de São Paulo, dada a vinculação de origem do Museu de Arte Contemporânea com essas duas instituições paulistanas. Na seqüência será analisada a formação do acervo fotográfico do Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo durante a década de 1970. Por fim, esse percurso permitirá observar que a atuação de Walter Zanini, o primeiro diretor do Museu, e as particularidades da posição do MAC-USP no sistema de arte no Brasil naquele período resultaram no entendimento da fotografia prioritariamente no âmbito da arte contemporânea de caráter experimental e não como obra de arte autônoma, segundo os princípios da chamada fotografia artística.This article presents the first findings of a research still under development about the process of legitimation of photography as a kind of art by the artistic scene in Brazil. The art museums of the city of São Paulo were chosen for starting that research. Initially, we will be investigating the presence of photography at the Contemporary Art Museum of São Paulo and at the Biennial of São Paulo, as the origin of the Contemporary Art Museum is tided to those two institutions. Following, the arrangement of the photographic technical reserve of the Contemporary Art Museum in the 1970s will be analyzed. This study will be focusing on the work of Walter Zanini, as the first director of the museum, and on the particularities of MAC-USP position in the art system in Brazil which resulted in the understanding of photography as belonging to the sphere of contemporary art in an experimental way and not as an autonomous work of art, according to the principals of the so called artistic photography

"Dial 'P' for Panties: Narrative Photography in the 1990s (with a New Afterword by the Author)"

This essay was originally published in 1999, at the height of the art world's interest in photographs of adolescent girls. In it, Soutter provides one of the few accounts that took this work seriously, offering conceptual frameworks within the history of art photography as well as attempting to understand its seductive quality via the context of fashion and pornographic photography. Soutter argues for the importance of understanding the narrative ambiguity of these staged photographs, and traces teh possible routes for reading these images of girls as critical of or complicit with the sexualised imagery of girlhood found in popular culture. Her comments on nudity and the parthenogenic nature of celebrity indicate some of the ways in which these photographs of girls can be read as delicately balanced postfeminist representations, a possibility which Soutter more fully acknowledges in her afterword, written a decade after this article was first published -- Catherine Grant and Lori Waxma

Why Art Photography

Edisi kedua dari Why Art Photography? Ini adalah pengantar yang diperbarui dan diperluas untuk ide-ide di balik gambar fotografi yang mencolok saat ini. Diskusi yang hidup dan mudah diakses tentang isu-isu kunci seperti ambiguitas, objektivitas, fiksi, keaslian, dan bidang fotografi yang meluas dilengkapi dengan materi baru seputar topik tepat waktu seperti globalisasi, budaya selfie, dan penggunaan teknologi digital canggih oleh fotografer, termasuk CGI dan realitas virtual. Edisi baru ini mencakup: bab-bab panjang pengantar yang diperluas yang menampilkan tren yang muncul pilihan gambar yang lebih besar, termasuk gambar warna baru bibliografi yang ditingkatkan dan diperluas. Edisi baru ini sangat penting bagi siswa yang ingin memperkaya pemahaman mereka tentang fotografi sebagai bentuk seni yang kompleks dan multi-faceted

Why Art Photography?

This sole-author book is a critical examination of the phenomenon of contemporary art photography. It was the product of extensive readings across philosophy, psychology and performance studies. As part of her research, Soutter also surveyed the output of many contemporary art photographers, selecting works for analysis by emergent figures such as Richard Kolker, Zoe Crosher and Jon Rafman, who have not hitherto been the subject of significant critical examination. Eschewing the usual touchstones in cultural studies, semiotics and the social history of art, Soutter established a number of fresh methodological vantage points for considering the central themes of art photography today. For instance, a chapter on digital practices describes a widening gap between spectacular ‘hyperphotography’ and degraded manifestations of ‘the poor image’, reflecting uses of photography within current social media. The relationship to this ‘source’ material has, as Soutter demonstrated, more significance for photography than its unstable relationship to real-world objects, a subject which preoccupied theorists of digital images in the 1990s. An art historian and critic with expertise in various fields, Soutter shapes an argument in the book about the ways that the field of photographic practice has expanded to overlap with other forms of art and cultural production. In a chapter on the aesthetics of affect, she shows how a subject that has been widely discussed in a fine art context has not been adequately addressed in relation to contemporary photography. Soutter’s ‘original contribution’ was described by a reviewer as ‘the value she places on invention… as an original mode of enquiry and experience’ (Source, 2013). She was invited to speak about her research at Photographers’ Gallery, London (2013), Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool (2013) and Concordia University, Montreal (2014). Soutter was invited to publish an essay on themes related to her book in Source Photographic Review (2012)

"Enigmatic Spectacle: Key Strategies in Contemporary Staged Photography."

Soutter’s long-standing expertise and interest in gender representation was reflected in this commission to write an essay for the catalogue of an exhibition at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. (2008–9). Making an original argument about an unbroken tradition of fiction in photography by women, Soutter identified precedents for contemporary staged photography in 19th-century photographic tableaux, pictorialist photography, mid-20th-century documentary, and 1960s conceptual art. The significance of Soutter’s essay lay in its specific focus on the work of women photographers, employing a feminist approach to consider previous blind spots in the literature and to foreground neglected female precedents. While staged photography has been discussed in relation to painting and the aesthetic realm, such analyses have failed to emphasise its potential for female artists who use collaborations with their subjects (Sharon Lockhart, Katy Grannan and Nikki S. Lee), constructions (Anna Gaskell) or highly personalised provocations (Nan Goldin) to specifically challenge assumptions about what it means to be, see or picture a woman. Soutter presented close readings of selected historical images to read a number of historical works by women against the grain, interpreting pictorialism (Gertrude Käsebier) as a mode for exploring the politics of identity rather than just Arcadian fantasies; mid-century documentary (Dorothea Lange) as a parallel to realist fiction in literature; and conceptual art (Eleanor Antin) as a narrative mode in opposition to the analytic tautologies of artists such as Joseph Kosuth. The essay closed by identifying a key trend since postmodernism: the desire of artists to be both critical observers and engaged participants, in a problematic blurring of documentary and formalism, realism and subjectivism. Soutter was subsequently invited to lecture on gender and photography, including at the Photography Research Forum of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (2011)

The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies

In response to widespread demand for more knowledge and insight about contemporary photographies beyond Western centers of production and dissemination, this volume provides a transnational discussion, grounded in dialogue between authors and editors from diverse locations and contexts. Ecological and decolonial discourses around photography reveal the medium’s global entanglements: images produced on one side of the globe are the result of labors which span its full surface. At the same time, the multiplicity of approaches and understandings of the photograph reveal that, even though it might seem like a universal language, we utilize its tools to radically different ends. The volume explores issues surrounding cultural translation, photography’s response to climate change, decolonial practices, network formation, new materialities, identities and the role of photobooks. It also provides in-depth surveys and case studies of global practices and theories, alongside interviews and roundtable discussions with key figures whose perspectives illuminate the contemporary field. This groundbreaking collection is an essential resource for academics and students working in or with photography, contextual studies, history, and theory, but also media and cultural studies more broadly

#end_of_empire: artist talk and discussion

A discussion on expanded photography and the (hauntological) potential of AI, centering around the project #end_of_empire by artist Eva Sajovic in collaboration with musician Nicola Privato, commissioned for the British Textile Biennial 2023. The evening commenced by exploring questions posed by the artists in this work, including the concept of knitting as ethical photography, the role of the body in mediating with the more-than-human, the potential and the risks of AI and the role of technology in facing the challenges of the Anthropocene. This was be followed by a response by Dr Lucy Soutter before it was opened to Q&A from the participants. #end_of_empire was a large scale, site-specific installation featuring knitted photographs embedded with touch sensors and AI generated sound. It was a co-commissioned by In-Situ and the British Textile Biennial with This Is Nelson Town Deal funding