Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before [Hardcover]

This book was reviewed in the Jan 2009 issue of ArtForum by Robin Kelsey, an art history professor at Harvard University and himself the author of several books on photography. Kelsey criticizes many aspects of the book, and points out some of the very same faults that people here have, including Fried's annoying habit of talking about himself and his work and his determination to make his theory work even when it requires ignoring, dismissing, or rationalizing evidence that seems to go against it. Still, he takes what Fried is saying very seriously and, in the end, recognizes the book as an important work about photography by an important art historian and critic.

I myself found the book a difficult and at times exasperating read but at the same time a, for the most part, interesting, even fascinating one. It showed me a way of looking at and thinking about photography that I had not encountered before. The key idea is the opposition between theatricality and antitheatricality. A theatrical work of art is one that addresses the beholder in some way, tells him something, asks him something, presupposes his presence. An antitheatrical work of art is one that does not do any of this, that is fully self-sufficient, asks nothing of the beholder, does not acknowledge his existence.

Fried talks about being both an art historian and an art critic. As an art historian he sees the two kinds of art as both existing and one or the other as having the upper hand vis-à-vis the other at a given point in (art) time. Fried the critic clearly strongly prefers antitheatrical to theatrical art, and loves to see antitheatrical art rise up and triumph over theatrical art. He is writing about the photography he is writing about in the book precisely because it is, to his mind, antitheatrical.

So what photography is it? Loosely speaking it is the art photography that started to appear in galleries and museums (and in the art market) about 1980 and is still going fairly strong today. It is the photography of the large print, particularly the art of the Canadian Jeff Wall, of the Bechers and their students - esp. Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff -, and a few others, mostly European, including Thomas Demand, Rineke Dijkstra, Luc Delahaye, and Beat Streuli (one of several videographers/filmmakers he looks at).

Fried presents discussions of the photographers in the set that focus on specific images (many of which are reproduced, all reasonably large and in color where the original was color) and bring in things the artists have said about the images and their work in general in statements and interviews. The discussions are intelligent and - at least if you like the photographers and their works - interesting. (An exception for me was when he gets into philosophy and starts quoting Hegel and Heidegger and Wittgenstein.) Sometimes his single minded adherence to his theory leads him to a complex and unconvincing interpretation where a much easier, more natural one is available. (His discussion of Struth's museum pictures was an example for me. I have actually seen some of them and their affect - for me at least - is much more in line with what other critics have said than what Fried is constrained by his theory to say.)

It is fine for Fried the critic to focus on the photography he likes - the photography of his title, the photography "that matters as art". But surely Fried the art historian has the responsibility to say something about other photography, and particularly the photography that came immediately before the photography he is focusing on, including that produced by the Conceptualists and their more image-focused successors the Pictures Generation, i.e. Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Sherrie Levine, Laurie Simmons at al, and also that of John Szarkowski's MoMA establishment. The photography "that matters" didn't come out of nowhere. It's part of the photographic tradition. The Bechers appeared in the 1975 New Topographics show beside Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and Stephen Shore.

This is not to say that he was obligated to lay out a complete (art) history of photography from 1960. But he could have said enough to put his photography into context and highlight the differences between it and the rest. It would have been especially to the point to identify some photography of the broader period (1960- on) that was theatrical, and let people look at theatrical and antitheatrical photography side by side and form their own understanding of the distinction he is so committed to.

One last point. As he himself acknowledges, his theory of theatrical and antitheatrical ultimately goes back to the 18th century encyclopedist Denis Diderot. He refers to him a number of times in this book, but only in an allusive way, and leaves it to the reader to go to his earlier book Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (1988), to find out what he (Diderot) said and how it informs his (Fried's) theory. It would have been nice if he could have recapped the main points in this book, and in particular to have drawn attention to the very close relationship between his (Diderot's) views on painting and his views on the theater. For as far as I can see Fried's concept of antitheaticality in pictorial art is at heart simply the static analog of Diderot's rule of the fourth wall in theater, which is widely known and fairly intuitive and easy to apply to specific cases.

I'll conclude by essentially echoing what Robin Kelsey said in his review. Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before has its problems, but it is must reading for anyone with a serious interest in art photography. It opens up a whole new dimension in how to look at and think about photographs (and not just art photographs). Hopefully others will follow up and clarify the theory and apply it to a broader range of work. 4 stars.

Cutting to the conclusion, the answer to the question posed by the author in the title is that now photography has provided the author with the work of more photographers that the author can bend to fit within a pet theory that he has developed over the years.

Michael Fried is the author of books like "Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot" and "Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews" which, he tells the reader throughout this book, are important works if one is to understand much of modern art. The author analyzes the work of many modern photographers, some of whom at first glance might appear to have nothing in common, including Jeff Wall, Thomas Ruff, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gurski, Luc Delahaye, Rineke Dijkstra, Thomas Demand, Hiroshi Sugimoto and even Bernd and Hilla Becher. For many viewers, the images of these photographers have been difficult to understand so that a global explanation of their work would certainly be welcome. As far as I can deduce, Fried's thesis is that the photographers, while creating works that are clearly meant to be seen, are at the same time trying to be antitheatrical, which in the author's lexicon means creating the illusion that the subjects are unaware of the photographer. I must confess that for many of the artists this was an easy to accept proposition that did not require so many pages for such a simple idea. However, even when I accepted this, I wondered how this aspect of form explicated the content of the pictures.

I was confused by Fried's lengthy incorporations of ideas presented by Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Barthes, and Hegel. There is no doubt in my mind that the branch of philosophy known as aesthetics can help us to understand the works of some modern art photographers. Unfortunately Fried's explanations often obscured the help that aesthetics might provide rather then clarifying the matter. During these discussions I regularly wondered how an aesthetician like Arthur C. Danto might have explained the thoughts of the same philosophers.

I was also reminded of the saying that, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When Fried explained the antitheatrical, using photographs that showed live subjects behaving as if they did not know of the presence of the photographers, even though they must have, it made clear sense to me. On the other hand I had a hard time finding the antitheatrical in Ruff's portraits of individuals staring deadpan at the camera or Struth's family portraits that show whole families looking at the camera (and seeming to my mind to look like many other well exposed pictures of people at a family gathering). It was even harder for me to understand how the typologies of the Bechers, consisting of groups of pictures of, say, water towers, were concerned with the antitheatrical rather then an explanation of the nature of ideal forms.

I was left with the same feeling on finishing this book that I am left with when I look at Wall's photographs. There is something important being said here that I can't grasp. Perhaps if the author were to rework the book, spending less time praising his own prior accomplishments and more time trying to clarify the common thread that he sees in these photographs in accessible language, he will have created a book that would allow people to understand the photographs being discussed rather then adding to the confusion.

I must say that this book brings out my inner editor. I want to bet someone that I can eliminate 25% of the words in this book without any diminution in meaning. I agree with other reviews that there are entirely too many references to Fried's prior works and quotes of critics quoting Fried (!) and notes about which famous photographers he knows. What is frustrating me the most is that underneath all of that, there is a genuine thesis that is interesting and adds to the photography discourse. I have to fault the editor. So I guess I would say grit your teeth, wade through it, and see what you think.