Università Roma Tre

Photography as Contemporary Art

The acceptance of photography as an artistic medium is among the phenomena that most contributed to redefining the landscape of the visual arts between 1960 and 2000. Challenging the traditional conception of painting and sculpture as the "apex" of the expressive hierarchy of the arts, artists began to probe the conceptual qualities of photography while at the same time questioning the alleged ability to capture objective "truth". Photography has thus been used in different ways - from conceptual and process art, from performance to feminist art, from "objective" German photography of the 1980s to the "Pictures Generation" -, all approaches which differed from the aesthetics that had characterized its modernist uses and often close to anonymous and vernacular manifestations (amateur photos, illustration, advertising, etc.). The course examines in parallel artworks and theoretical elaborations, focusing on key figures of the period.

Pop Constellation: Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Diane Arbus. Conceptual photography I: Douglas Huebler, Bruce Nauman, John Baldessari. Conceptual photography II: Ugo Mulas, Franco Vaccari. Performance: Vito Acconci, Luigi Ontani, Anna Wilke, Giuseppe Penone. The Düsseldorf School: Bernd e Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth. Pictures Generation: Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince. Self-portrait: Francesca Woodman, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe. New topographies: Jeff Wall, Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams. Viaggio in Italia: Luigi Ghirri, Gabriele Basilico.


For further informations please check this link: https://romatrecontemporanea.blogspot.it/

Philippe Dubois, L'atto fotografico, Urbino 2009, pp. 25-108
Claudio Marra, Fotografia e pittura nel Novecento, Milano 2012, pp. 168-248
David Campany, Art an Photography, London 2011: Introduction
Rosalind Krauss, Nota sulla fotografia e il simulacro, in Teoria e storia della fotografia, Milano 2006, pp. 219-32.
Roberta Valtorta (a cura di), Il pensiero dei fotografi, Milano 2008
Stefan Gronert, La scuola di Düsseldorf, Monza 2010

Some of these texts are downloadable at: https://romatrecontemporanea.blogspot.it/, in the relative 2017-18 post.

All images used during the classes are easily available on the internet, including on major museums websites (MoMA, Tate, Centre Pompidou ecc.).

Textbook:
Hal Foster et al., Art since 1900, Thames & Hudson