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Foreword
to Tarnished Silver: After the Photo Boom,
Essays and Lectures 1979-1989
by A. D. Coleman |
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I suppose everyone
involved in photography who lived through the 1980s
has his or her own version of that problematic decade.
This book, then, represents mine. It brings together
in one place a substantial sampling of the shorter
essays and lectures that I produced during the years
1979-1989, a time of remarkable change in the medium
and its relation to our culture. The books
title derives from a passing comment of Richard
Kirstels: The premise of photography
is that silver tarnishes.
On one level, Tarnished Silver is intended
as an extension of and companion piece to my first
volume of selected essays, Light Readings: A
Photography Critics Writings, 1968-1978.1
By design, the work Ive chosen to preserve
here continues and extends the critical project
whose first phase is outlined in Light Readings.
There are certainly similarities between the two.
The contents of each span eleven years, and were
produced for a variety of publications and readerships.
Both books range widely and no doubt eccentrically
over an ever-broadening field, speak in several
different voices, and bring together essays with
a number of diverse purposes. In these senses, Tarnished
Silver complements Light Readings; taken
together, the two provide, to my satisfaction, an
effective survey of some central aspects of my work
over the twenty-one years they encompass.
Yet I think it is important to point out that, with
one exception, all the material collected here postdates
the Light Readings period.2
Also, unlike its predecessor and that works
immediate successor,3
this book is not arranged chronologically; contains
little that is journalistic and/or diaristic; includes
only a few occasional pieces; and consists largely
of polemics and ruminative essays. Its relationship
to Light Readings notwithstanding, the present
volume stands on its own.
Considered as a cross-section drawn from the second
phase of my work as a critic, it feels much different
to me. For one thing, my voice -- or voices -- appear
to have changed. So has at least one major aspect
of my self-defined job description: by 1979, when
the years covered by this volume begin, Id
long since given up trying to survey the full range
of activity in the field, and, with no general-audience
forum regularly at my disposal, felt no urgency
(even when I felt the urge) to voice an opinion
on whatever was new and cutting-edge. That was a
let-down, in a way, but also liberating; with nothing
breathing down my neck, I was free to follow my
nose. This book is a retroactive map of where it
led me.4 On
some issues, it may appear that I stepped out for
a beer; and perhaps I did. But I also rethought
my overall project, worked some key ideas through,
and created a set of reasoned arguments that, as
reference points, I was finding increasingly necessary.
Since the nature of my work has been shaped to a
considerable extent by the circumstances under which
Ive labored professionally, some description
of context seems called for. Let me begin by reminding
my faithful readers and informing new ones that
I am a working professional critic. This means,
among other things, that Im a writer for hire
-- or, as Sadakichi Hartmann once described himself,
a bread and butter writer. Writing is
my livelihood -- a good part of it, anyway; that
makes me the commercial producer of a marketable
commodity. This doesnt mean that my opinion
is at the disposal of my customers; Ive never
cut my politics to fit this years fashion,
in Lillian Hellmans phrase, and have chosen
to remain a free lance in order to retain my autonomy
as a voice. But it does mean that what I produce
(and, perhaps more to the point, what I do not produce)
is to some extent determined by the nature of the
current market for critical writing about photography.
In the decade-plus covered by this volume I published
most regularly in two periodicals: Camera 35,
whose circulation was somewhere around 100,000 when
it closed its doors in 1982; and, from shortly after
Camera 35's demise until its demise in
the fall of 1986, Lens On Campus, a
non-newsstand bi-monthly that was distributed in
bulk, free of charge, to 100,000 college-level photography
teachers and students throughout the U.S. This at
least put my work directly into the hands of what
I consider to be one of my primary and essential
constituencies. But my own search for other vehicles,
through which my writing could be made available
to the general public, continued during that stretch
of time -- and was rewarded at its end.
In the meantime, I adopted some practical strategies
for extending my readership. One of these involved
publishing different versions of the same core essay
in diverse publications whose readerships did not
significantly overlap. That has been the case with
many of the essays included here.5
What did all of this mean, pragmatically speaking?
More dealings with more editors over a given essay
then ever before in my experience. The more careful
shaping, and re-shaping, of pieces whose substance
could sustain such attention. Recognition of the
patent impossibility of building an extended line
of reasoning within the pages of a journal that
had commissioned only a single6
essay. The consequent necessity of redefining my
terms each time out, guessing at the level of sophistication
of each new readership, receiving little feedback.
The fragmentation of my energies and efforts. The
frustration of seeing work reach only a small segment
of its potential audience. The distress of discovering
that it had actually disappeared without a trace.
(Relevant here is the fact that so many of the publications
in which these essays originally appeared are now
defunct: A Critique of America, Art Express,
Camera 35, Camera Lucida, Lens
On Campus, Photoshow, the SoHo Weekly
News. I take some pride in having done my part
to counterbalance this trend by serving from 1979
-81 as founding editor of VIEWS: A New England
Journal of Photography, which as of this writing
is still alive and kicking.)
Two essays elsewhere in this book -- Damn
the Neuroses! Full Speed Ahead! or, Thoughts on
the Free-Lance Life and Choice of Audience/Choice
of Voice -- speak to this set of issues; further
elaboration here would be redundant. Suffice it
to say that, as a working writer, I found it a period
of struggle and consolidation. But, as has generally
been the case, the choice of subject and approach
remained largely up to me; what I chose to work
on and found outlets for during that time, as reflected
in this book and a forthcoming one,7
was self-determined, rarely assigned.
Obstacles, in any case, exist as opportunities for
growth. In my personal life, I spent that decade
making a home and raising my son as a single father.
Professionally, I immersed myself more fully in
teaching, on both the undergraduate and graduate
levels; developed the more scholarly aspect of my
temperament, in writing and in formal study of mass
media and communications theory;8
explored what I wanted to explore, honed my skills,
and bided my time. It felt like what jazz musicians
call woodshedding; I thought a lot about Sonny Rollins
on the Manhattan Bridge. In 1988, a door opened
at the New York Observer, and -- with my
son grown and leaving home -- I decided to step
back through it into regular reviewing once again,
bringing the ideas and capacities Id been
developing to bear on an ongoing discussion of photography
in the 90s.
For the purpose of sketching my concerns during
that period, I have divided this book into five
sections. The Prelude, Choice
of Audience/Choice of Voice, synthesizes some
of what I thought Id learned by 1979 about
the situation of the critic in our time. Barometric
Pressures addresses the state of photography
criticism and photography education, power shifts
in the contemporary photography establishment, the
influence of corporate and governmental sponsorship,
the emerging international photography scene, and
other noteworthy aspects of photographic activity.
Paradigm Shift brings together three
interlocking essays on the snapshot aesthetic:
discussions of two of its practitioners and one
of its institutional champions.
The search for pan-stylistic linkages was already
an undercurrent in my work by the late 1970s. Increasingly,
Ive felt the urge to trace connective relationships
between images, theories, and ways of working, to
seek evidence of pattern, the spoor of morphology.
The ideal outlet for that yearning, in my opinion,
is the well-illustrated critical survey in book
form. Numerous such projects of mine have been formulated,
but only one of them -- The Grotesque in Photography9
-- has been fully realized. While some of the rooms
in this museum without walls exist only
in my head, others have been sketched out on paper.
My essay on The Directorial Mode in
Light Readings is one instance. Four more
of these -- on the autobiographical mode, the still
life, the erotic, and hybrid forms -- have been
included here, in the section of the book titled
Revisionism and Gap-Filling. They represent
my attempts to build larger, more coherent wholes
out of the heaps of contemporary work. This section
also contains brief meditations on such issues as
the historiography of photography, and color photography
and the criticism thereof.
Finally, the concluding section brings together
four essays on issues of sex and censorship in photography,
one of my areas of continuing concern. In retrospect,
these seem sadly prophetic of the way things went
toward the end of the 80s.
>Its my hope that the books structure
will reward the reader who chooses to travel through
it from beginning to end; at the same time, since
each essay was created to stand as a self -contained
statement, the pleasures of browsing should not
be precluded. The editing of this volume has provided
the opportunity to bring these component essays,
separately created, together as a coherent unit
for the first time. As a result, I begin to have
some sense of what they represent in aggregate.
It is in this regard, I suspect, that my critics
will be most useful to me in their interpretations
of this book, as they were with its predecessor.
Given its omissions, and its idiosyncratic obsessions,
Id be surprised if this book captures the
flavor of anyone elses 1980s except mine.
I make no apologies for that. I found it a difficult
decade, to say the least. Nonetheless, as is my
wont, I kept busy, and tried to use my time well.
I hope these distillations of those efforts reward
your attention.
-- A. D. Coleman
Staten Island, New York
December 1995
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Notes
1
Oxford University Press, 1979; second edition, expanded,
University of New Mexico Press, 1998.
2
With one exception: "The Autobiographical Mode
in Photography." This essay, which dates from
1975 but felt like it belonged here, is the only ringer
in the book; all the others were produced during the
period indicated in the book's subtitle, 1979-1989.
3
Critical Focus: Photography in the International
Image Community (Munich: Nazraeli Press, 1995).
4
And where it didn't. For example, while there are
occasional references to artists and theorists associated
with Postmodernism, the activities of that movement,
if one can call it such, are largely absent from these
pages. I had serious reservations over both the theory
and the practice called Postmodernism; rather than
rushing to judgment, I decided to let those engaged
with this set of ideas sort them out, while I digested
them quietly. Readers who want to know what I concluded
are advised to seek out my volume of recent reviews
and commentaries, Critical Focus.
5
At the end of each essay or lecture, I've indicated
the date of its first publication or delivery. On
the Credits page, at the book's conclusion, I've ascribed
each essay to the periodical that sponsored its debut.
Whenever, in its form within these pages, an essay
differs considerably from its original printed version,
the publication in which that revised version appeared
is also identified. Other relevant information concerning
the publication history of some of these texts appears
in the endnotes.
6
As a consequence, the reader will note, certain passages
recur in several essays on related themes. I've decided
to let these reiterations stand, in the interest of
continuity within each essay and fidelity to the original
appearance of these pieces.
7
Depth of Field: Essays on Photography, Mass Media
and Lens Culture (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1998).
8
As a doctoral candidate in the Communications Arts
and Sciences program, SEHNAP, New York University.
9
(New York: Ridge Press/Summit Books, 1977).
From Tarnished
Silver: After the Photo Boom, Essays and Lectures
1979-1989 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1996).
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Copyright
© 1996 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. For
reprint permissions contact Image/World Syndication
Services, POB 040078, Staten Island, NY 10304-0002 USA;T/F
(718) 447-3091, imageworld@nearbycafe.com
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