Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography | 
 enlarge | Author: T.j. Demos And Editors Of Phaidon Press
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Category: Book
List Price: $69.95
Buy New: $44.07
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 37410
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5.4
Dimensions (in): 12.1 x 10.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0714846562
Dewey Decimal Number: 779
EAN: 9780714846569
ASIN: 0714846562
Publication Date: October 21, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
The Definitive Book on Photography Today;Featuring 121 Artists from Over 30 CountriesThe life of an artistic medium lies in the capricious nature of thecontemporary art market.Even the heavy-hitters - painting, sculpture anddrawing - have fallen victim to this ebb and flow; declared dead onemoment, only to be resurrected the next. Now it is photography's turn tocontemplate its fate atop this precarious fence.Does it fall backward andplay into the taunts that call photography an "obsolete" medium, sostretched and manipulated by its collaborations with other practices thatit is rendered indefinable?Or, inspired by globalization, does it jumpforward into distinction, with practitioners resuscitating the traditionalform of the documentary image?VITAMIN Ph: NEW PERSPECTIVES IN PHOTOGRAPHY, with an introduction by TJDemos, is the definitive book on photography in the contemporary art worldtoday.VITAMIN Ph is a global survey of new developments in the medium ofphotography, featuring 121 living artists who have made a contribution tothe international art photography scene in the last five years. VITAMIN Ph presents a stunning collection of 500 images, the magnitude anddiversity of which illustrates the integral developments in photography -the dispersal of the medium on the one hand and the reinvention ofdocumentary representation on the other - that have recalibrated the mediumin the age of globalization. The artists were nominated by 78 of theworld's top critics, curators and fellow artists such as: Vince Aletti,Christine Macel, Martin Parr, Sandra Philips, Mark Godfrey, Tod Papageorge,Tim Griffin, Jack Persekian, Richard Flood, Donna De Salvo, Katy Seigel,Richard Prince and Sarah Lewis. VITAMIN Ph features an introduction by TJ Demos, Lecturer in Art History atUniversity College London, member of Art Journal's editorial board andcontributor to ArtForum.Demos offers a critical account of photography asa medium driven by two things - the reinvention of documentary practice andphotography's fragmentation as a medium - and inspired by the historicalcircumstances of our current era.He explores the impact of technologicaladvances, geographic mobility, and the decline in national sovereignty onphotography today.Demos theorizes that photography, through its growingdiversity, illustrates the many ways that we are different, helps us tounderstand those differences, and connects us to a global world.The 121 artists selected represent over 30 countries including, Morocco,Russia, South Africa, Israel, South Korea, Greece, Mexico, Palestine, andthe United States. There is an ocean of talent: established artists, recentcrossovers to the medium, and artists who are just making their mark on theart scene.Some highlights from the book include:*The work of established artists Tacita Dean and Anri Sala and themore emerging, Miriam B+ckstr+m and Markus Schinwald, display theinfluence of a trained camera-eye.These artists have made a foray intophotography that is built upon the elements of video: storytelling,framing, and the importance of place and time. Schinwald, who's artisticstudies began in fashion design, explores strategies of theatrical gesturewith a polished cinematic style *The performance artist, Tim Lee, uses the medium to stage complexrelationships between iconic artworks, canonical moments of popular cultureand issues of racial identity.His image, The Jerk, Carl Reiner, 1979(2004), illustrates a duality in meaning, one with complex culturalundertones as well as full frontal absurdity.*The Russian collaborate AES+F, the Israeli artist Emily Jacir and theemerging artists Ahlam Shibli and An-My L+ create works inspired by thepolitics of their respective cultures, as they exist in today's society. Le, a political refugee from Vietnam, became involved in a Vietnam Warre-enactor group in South Carolina in which she participated and tookphotographs of Vietnam battles restaged on her newly adopted American soil. Under the guise of photojournalism
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| Customer Reviews:
 An impeccably-made survey of contemporary photography. August 31, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful book. I bought it truly as a "vitamin", to give myself a kick in the pants regarding my own photography: to find some sources of inspiration that were more up-to-date than my usual heroes (Minor White, Cartier-Bresson, etc). It served that purpose admirably. The artists and photographs are carefully chosen, and the essays are well-written. Some of the essays are even in English rather than art-speak. There is an incredible range of styles represented here, encompassing both conceptually-driven and aesthetically-driven art. Because of the large size and beautiful paper and production, this book is a tactile and visual treat that would make a great gift for any photographer on one's holiday list.
 An overview of photography July 11, 2007
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
It's big, it's well produced and it's a worthy addition to a photo book collection. Phaidon is a great publisher and the production values of this book are up to their usual high standards. The concept of "New Perspectives in Photography" is an ambitious topic, given the broad variety of art photography practice around the world. If you could sum up the main trend, it would have to be the movement away from the photo document and towards a conceptual exploration of the photographic object as it relates to the human experience. It is not photography, it is photographic.
Much of the work is relatively new, made in the past ten years and is representative of that shown by a certain kind of photography gallery -- one looking forward, yet rooted in the past. That said, much of the work references earlier photographs. Artists such as Gregory Crewdson and Anne Hardy create narrative, staged environments that the photograph documents, yet they look back to work from the 80's by Sandy Skoglund. Nikki Lee's work with her personal identity clearly references earlier work by Cindy Sherman. Tim Lee uses the photograph as a document of his conceptual work, a traditional way to preserve performance and conceptual art. However, there are some valuable new perspectives.
Rinko Kawauchi's beautiful photographs of life's ephemeral moments indeed provide a new, thoughtful perspective -- her book "the eyes, the ears" is worth searching out (sorry, not available on Amazon, I found my copy in Tokyo). Esteban Pastorino Diaz challenges our understanding of visual devices and the way they form our perspective of the world. And Paul Pfeiffer uses a database filtering model to create meaning from a photographic practice based on images appropriated from popular media. Clearly, innovation is limited only by the imagination.
The challenge with this type of overview is that it is almost too wide ranging and lacks depth -- it is without a singular point of view. It mostly covers artists who are already "established" in the gallery and museum circuit, which means you will be about five years behind the state of the art. The latest, newest work is found on the Internet, but only to those with the time, desire and domain knowledge to seek it out.
While you may pick it up once or twice, it is most valuable as a point of departure for further exploration of individual artists. As the other reviewers from New Zealand mentioned, it will probably be most valuable to readers without access to contemporary art galleries.
A great glimpse at contemporary photography April 1, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book provides a short sample of each artists work along with an explanation about the artist or the works.
It is fantastic as a student tool to have such a range of works at your fingertips. It is also great for those just looking as the content is broad and dynamic.
I have yet to come across a book that has such a large number of contemporary photographers along with a range of their work (rather than a single iimage job).
New Zealand Artist January 19, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Having already purchased Vitamin D and Vitamin P I was expecting great things of Vitamin Ph. I was not disappointed. This book is beautifully presented. The Artists work chosen for this book are all of a high standard. Living in NZ you are a long way away from the International art scene. The only way to find out what is happening is from books such as this.
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