David Levi Strauss: Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller Images Tomorrow: Essays on the Present and Future of Photography

by David Levi Strauss

Overview

At this transitional moment in the field of photography, how should we consider what is to come for the medium? Can its past and present practitioners help guide us, both as creators and as observers? David Levi Strauss—eminent author, critic and teacher—rises to the challenge of these questions and more in "Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller Images Tomorrow: Essays on the Present and Future of Photography." In the course of 25 essays, some of which appear for the first time in this volume, Strauss discusses the work of artists who provoke us with revealing, clear-eyed investigations of the ostensibly patent world in front of us, and others who transport us to new realms, poetic and unreal—creative minds ranging from Frederick Sommer, Helen Levitt, Daido Moriyama and Joseph Beuys to contemporary photographers Sally Mann, James Nachtwey, Susan Meiselas, Tim Davis and many others. Also considered are the groundbreaking theoretical writings of Susan Sontag and Jean-Luc Nancy, the films of Chris Marker and Stan Brakhage, and issues and events that have irrevocably altered the way we consider the medium of photography and how it communicates: 9/11, Abu Ghraib, the death of Osama bin Laden, the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. Published in the "Aperture Ideas" series, "Words Not Spent Today" is an incisive exploration of photography's changing role as a tool of evidence and conscience as we move forward into—can we say it?—a post-photographic era.
David Levi Strauss is the author of "From Head to Hand: Art and the Manual" (2010); "Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics," with an introduction by John Berger (2003); and "Between Dog and Wolf: Essays on Art and Politics" (1999, updated in 2010 with a prolegomenon by Hakim Bey). Strauss was a Guggenheim fellow in 2003 and received the Infinity Award for Writing from the International Center of Photography in 2007. He is chair of the graduate program in art criticism and writing at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597112710
Publisher:	Aperture Foundation
Publication date:	05/31/2014
Pages:	191
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

David Levi Strauss is the author of From Head to Hand: Art and the Manual (2010); Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics, with an introduction by John Berger (Aperture, 2003); and Between Dog and Wolf: Essays on Art and Politics (1999, updated in 2010 with a prolegomenon by Hakim Bey). Strauss was a Guggenheim fellow in 2003 and received the Infinity Award for Writing from the International Center of Photography in 2007. He is chair of the graduate program in art criticism and writing at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/02/2014
With his 2003 collection Between the Eyes, Levi Strauss brought a fresh voice and fearless intellect to bear on topics of aesthetics and politics in photography. This latest collection of 25 humane and insightful essays shows the development of his thinking across a wide range of subjects, all addressed with seriousness and discernment: Sally Mann's "unflinching and loving" eye exploits the fiction and believability of photography; photojournalist Kevin Carter, who committed suicide in 1994, was the "scapegoat for our guilty desire for images of others' suffering"; and Robert Bergman's portraits collectively depict "the sovereign populace on which American democracy is based." The critic revisits the "aestheticization of suffering" critique fashionable in the late 1980s, and contends that 9/11 "reset the clock on documentary images," reminding us that photography is a "medium of mourning." He responds eloquently to images from Abu Ghraib, Tahrir Square, and Zuccotti Park during the Occupy protests. The unforgettable collection is marked by the staunch conviction that, despite its limitations, art has something important to say and should risk saying it. (May)

Publishers Weekly

He is photography's troubled conscience.—Luc Sante"Luc Sante" (05/31/2014)

In the night by his intelligence and compassion, David Levi Strauss talks about what has been forgotten, what is being systematically erased, and what we need to remember for tomorrow.—John Berger"John Berger" (05/31/2014)

David Levi Strauss is an art critic of exceptional quality and depth. I can think of none in this field I would rank ahead of him in terms of his knowledge, his seriousness, his adventure, and the power of his writing.—Arthur Danto"Arthur Danto" (05/31/2014)

From the Publisher

Veteran New York critic David Levi Strauss is the undisputed champion of literary art writting. Here, he brings that lucid narrative voice and erudite critical eye to bear on 21st-century image culture in an array of recent essays that tell a cautionary tale of perceptual flux from Joseph Beuys and 9/11 to the "inconvenient evidence" of Abu Ghraib to the revolutionary anxieties at stake in Zuccotti Park and Tahrir Square.

Canadianart

David Levi Strauss is an art critic of exceptional quality and depth. I can think of none in this field I would rank ahead of him in terms of his knowledge, his seriousness, his adventure, and the power of his writing.

Arthur Danto

He is photography’s troubled conscience.

Luc Sante

In the night by his intelligence and compassion, David Levi Strauss talks about what has been forgotten, what is being systematically erased, and what we need to remember for tomorrow.

John Berger