Customer Reviews:
 Illogical Organization, Unintelligible Text, Etc Frustrating November 14, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
As stated in the back, "This book is the official catalogue for the exhibitions entitled photo text text photo at the MUSEION - Museum für Moderne Kunste, Bozen from September 13th to November 17th, 1996, and the Frankfurter Kunstverein from January 21st to March 3rd, 1997." In order, the book has a short essay "Image and Word, Photo and Text" by Andreas Hapkemeyer; photographs by 17 artists; a short essay "Between Text and Photo" by Peter Weiermair; photos by 32 artists (including the 17 toward the front of the book, plus 15 more); a list of works; and biographies, bibliographies, and artists' statements.
The #1 problem with this book is its organization. The 17 artists in the first section of photos are presented in apparently random order. The complete set of 32 artists - Vito Acconci, Vincenzo Agnetti, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Joseph Beuys, Heiner Blum, Victor Burgin, Willie Doherty, Bernard Faucon, Hamish Fulton, Jochen Gerz, Gilbert & George, Jenny Holzer, Douglas Huebler, Peter Hutchinson, On Kawara, Karen Knorr, Joseph Kosuth, Barbara Kruger, Ketty La Rocca, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Louise Lawler, Jean Le Gac, Ken Lum, Urs Lüthi, Duane Michals, Maurizio Nannucci, Shirin Neshat, Laura Padgett, Giulio Paolini, Olivier Richon, and Klaus Staeck - in the second section of photos are in alphabetical sequence. I don't see why the all photos couldn't have been in chronological or alphabetical order, or grouped by some sort of themes.
Second, some photographers using words in their works have been omitted. I'm thinking of John Hilliard's "Cause of Death," Carrie Mae Weems's "Sea Island Series," David Wojnarowicz's "[One day this kid...]", etc. Of course, the curators had to make choices in selecting the works, and mostly their choices were sound.
A 3rd problem is that some of the text in the photos is difficult to understand. In many works (e.g., on pages 27, 30, 41, 63-64, 86, 88, 94-95, 107-109, and 115-119) the text is not translated from Farsi, French, German, Greek, and Italian. In some works (e.g., on pages 16, 61, and 91) the text is too small.
Finally, some of the artists' statements (e.g., on pages 127-129, 131-132, 135-138, and 140-143) are untranslated. The preface and the two essays were apparently translated from German by John S. Southard; one would think that the publisher could have paid for a translation of the artists' statements as well.
Despite the problems mentioned above, however, the book occupies a unique niche in that I am unaware of other books that deal specifically with the use of words in photography. Obtain it from Amazon.com!
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