“[Documentary photography] is unwittingly literary, because it is nothing other than an observation of contemporary life apprehended at the right moment by an artist capable of seizing it. (1928)” MomentsArtistPhotographyCapableContemporaryObservationDocumentariesRight MomentSeizingContemporary LifeDocumentary Photography Author:Pierre Mac Orlan
“In 1967 there was no place for photography in a contemporary art gallery. It was almost impossible to get an art dealer to look at, let alone exhibit, anything photographic.” LooksArtImpossiblePhotographyContemporaryGalleryExhibitsDealerContemporary ArtArt Galleries Author:Mel Bochner
“Photography is, and has been since its conception, a fabulously broad church. Contemporary practice demonstrates that the medium can be a prompt, a process, a vehicle, a collective pursuit, and not just the physical end product of solitary artists' endeavors.” Has BeensEndsArtistProcessChurchPracticeProductsPhotographyPursuitContemporaryMediumsCollectivesBroadsEndeavorConceptionVehicleSolitaryPrompts Author:Charlotte Cotton
“The ultimate role of photography as a contemporary language of visual communication consists of its capacity to slow down our fast and chaotic way of reading images.” WayReadingLanguageRolesCommunicationPhotographyCapacityUltimateContemporaryVisualsSlow DownChaotic Author:Luigi Ghirri
“... while in theory digital technology entails the flawless replication of data, its actual use in contemporary society is characterized by the loss of data, degradation, and noise; the noise which is even stronger than that of traditional photography.” UseLossTechnologyTheoryPhotographyStrongerContemporaryNoiseTraditionalDataDigitalDegradationFlawlessDigital TechnologyContemporary SocietyReplication Author:Lev Manovich
“Contemporary art photography, or, more specifically, what I would term mainstream art photography, represents for the most part the mining of an exhausted lode.” ArtTermPhotographyContemporaryMainstreamExhaustedMiningContemporary ArtArt Photography Author:Abigail Solomon-Godeau
“The relation of photography and language is a principal site of struggle for value and power in contemporary representations of reality; it is the place where images and words find and lose their conscience, their aesthetic and ethical identity.” RealityValuesLanguageLosesStruggleIdentityPhotographyConscienceRelationContemporaryEthicalAestheticPrincipalSiteRepresentation Author:William J. Mitchell
“The contemporary artist...is not bound to a fully conceived, previsioned end. His mind is kept alert to in-process discovery and a working rapport is established between the artist and his creation. While it may be true, as Nathan Lyons stated, 'The eye and the camera see more than the mind knows,' is it not also conceivable that the mind knows more than the eye and the camera can see?” KnowsMindMayEndsEyeArtistProcessCreationPhotographyDiscoveryCamerasBoundsPhotographerContemporaryBeing TrueRapport Author:Jerry Uelsmann