{"id":1484,"date":"2009-04-19T11:28:01","date_gmt":"2009-04-19T11:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/?p=1484"},"modified":"2009-04-19T11:28:01","modified_gmt":"2009-04-19T11:28:01","slug":"michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n
\n
\n\n\n<\/o:smarttagtype><\/o:smarttagtype><\/o:smarttagtype><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once Michael Fried starts talking about photography his enthusiasm is infectious: \u2018What I was seeing was people standing in front a work by Jeff Wall for twenty or twenty five minutes – and talking about it, discussing it, pointing out things. And I thought, \u201cMan, this is great; this is just good in itself\u201d. I\u2019d say to my painter friends – even the ones who are still abstract painters – \u201cPhotography is on your side \u2013 just wait.\u201d Because photography is making people look closely again, and in itself that is simply marvellous.\u2019<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\u00a9<\/p>\n

Jeff Wall, The Destroyed Room<\/em>, 1978. Transparency in lightbox<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are discussing Fried\u2019s latest book Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before<\/em>, a study of the work of selected contemporary photographers including Wall, Thomas Demand, Andreas Gursky, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Candida Hofer and Luc Delahaye, amongst others. As might be expected from one of art\u2019s premier critics and historians, his work probes far deeper than many comparable surveys \u201cThe problem is,\u201d he explains, \u201cthat almost always writers don\u2019t go far enough when discussing contemporary photography. So, if we\u2019re talking about Thomas Demand for example, you\u2019ll find essay after essay, article after article, that will describe exactly what Demand does: he gets an image from the media, he re-makes it in cardboard and he then photographs it. But what you never really get is an account of why<\/em> the writer thinks he did that \u2013 of the motivation behind such a labour-intensive way of making a photograph.\u201d<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>\u2018And you can generalise that across the board: everyone understands what the Bechers did for all those decades,\u2019 he continues without pausing. \u2018There are very useful accounts of it: they would drive to these different places; they would wait for the sky to be a certain kind of grey light; they would build a specific kind of scaffolding, because they would always photograph from a certain height. They wanted this; they wanted that. They then put together these typologies in various ways\u2026and, that\u2019s it. But the question, for me is \u2018OK, they did that\u2026and why is that important? Or \u201cWhat is the further, deep significance of that?\u201d To put it really simply: What is their project? What\u2019s Demand\u2019s project? What\u2019s Struth\u2019s project in the family pictures? What are the projects of Gursky, Wall, and so on? My book is relentless in trying to give an account of these different projects, as I see it. I may be wrong in every single case \u2013 I have no guarantee that I\u2019m right. But at least I\u2019ve tried, again and again, to develop interpretive critical accounts of what I take these people to be trying to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\u00a9<\/p>\n

Thomas Demand, Sink<\/em>, 1997. Chromogenic process print with diasec. <\/span>
<\/span><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The photographers are household names; and their work well-known. Yet an air of improbability \u2013 unreality even – permeates our conversation. After all, who would have predicted that Fried \u2013 the trenchant and partisan advocate in the 1960\u2019s of high modernist abstraction \u2013 would ever throw in his lot with photography? Who, for that matter, would have foretold that Fried \u2013 after decades as a historian of eighteenth and nineteenth century art \u2013 would return with a vengeance to criticism and the contemporary scene? Reflecting on his volte-face<\/em> Fried identifies a pivotal moment five years ago when he abruptly shelved a near-complete study of Caravaggio to focus his attention instead on new art photography. Enthusing about the decision, he comments, \u201cIt was exciting and it felt very urgent because it was contemporary. The earliest part of my career was as a contemporary critic and it\u2019s been very thrilling to feel that I\u2019m back in the arena. And I am.\u201d <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

That said, at one level Fried has long enjoyed<\/em> photography. He explains, \u2018I bought my first photograph \u2013 a Berenice Abbott print – in my early 30\u2019s. So I was aware<\/em> of photography; I liked looking at photographs. At some point in the early 80\u2019s there was a big Timothy O\u2019Sullivan exhibition in Washington<\/st1:city> DC<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>, and I completely loved it. If I could figure out how to write about O\u2019Sullivan I would do it tomorrow, or I would have done it then. But I just didn\u2019t see how to get at it. <\/span>I would go see photography exhibitions, but I knew terribly little about it and I was not in any way focused on the subject – I didn\u2019t have anything to say about it.\u2019<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\"fried_welling.jpg\"<\/p>\n

James Welling, exhibition catalogue (detail), Wexner Center for the Arts, 2000<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018My serious engagement with photography really began in the 1990\u2019s through coming to know the work of, and becoming friends with, first James Welling and second Jeff Wall. I started to play catch-up around 1994; at that moment, anybody<\/em> who was interested in photography knew a million times more than I. Then I began sensing that something was happening that I could see was very interesting. And what happens for me is that when I start a new project, everything I write, everything I do, comes out of some moment of simultaneous visual engagement and something that feels like an insight \u2013 a feeling of \u201cHey, look at that. Could this be the way it goes?\u201d Once that started with photography, then I started paying attention.\u2019<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Given his earlier interests, Fried\u2019s Damascene conversion appears -if not baffling – certainly contradictory.<\/o:p> He rose to eminence in the sixties as an opinionated and controversial theorist of Modernist art, for example, second only \u2013 in status and influence – <\/span>to his former mentor Clement Greenberg. In the formalist criticism of essays such as \u201cShape and Form\u201d and \u201cArt and Objecthood\u201d (both published in Artforum, <\/em>1966-7 <\/em>) Fried argued for the primacy of the transcendent and intuitive experience of a work\u2019s value, itself adjudicated by reference to canonical exemplars in that medium. (It hardly needs saying that the circumstances were not conducive to the appreciation of a medium as utilitarian and promiscuous as photography). In \u201cArt and Objecthood\u201d in particular, he famously attacked the objects and suppositions of minimalism, or literalism, denouncing its concerns and mode of address as theatrical<\/em> and thereby inimical to the autonomy of the proper formalist and aesthetic concerns of advanced art. The theatricality<\/em> of a work\u2019s implied relationship to <\/span>its viewer constituted, for Fried, a corruption of modernist sensibilities and a fraudulent passing-off of \u201cingratiating and mediocre\u201d work as \u201cdifficult and advanced.\u201d <\/span>The essay caused a furore and polarised opinion, while definitively summarising what, for some, was felt to be at stake.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course neither minimalism nor history was on his side: the hour of high modernism marked an eclipse, not a new dawn. With time, his spirited attack on the minimalists and all they stood for began to more closely resemble the last-ditch defence of a beleaguered abstractionist modernism. In the decades that followed Fried eschewed criticism, but not his hostility to theatricality \u2013 a lineage of which he charted in a trilogy of books examining the course of French art from the middle of the eighteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth: Absorption and Theatricality<\/em>; Courbet\u2019s Realism<\/em>; and Manet\u2019s Modernism<\/o:p><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\u00a9<\/p>\n

Stephen Shore, Holden Street, North Adams, Massachusetts, July 13, 1974<\/em><\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it was while he was immersed in French art history that Fried believes the dynamics of contemporary picture-making changed again \u2013 this time through the medium of photography. The catalyst was its admission to the space of the gallery, and the photographer\u2019s incorporation of that destination into their work. \u2018I was oblivious to all this\u2019, he recalls \u2018but then I think something started to transpire around 1980 when the pictures get larger and they get made for the wall. Once that happens they naturally engage with issues which have to do with their relation to the viewer; and a whole set of issues return in force – to my mind – in new and completely unexpected ways.\u2019 <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\"fried_why.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Cover illustration: Jeff Wall, A View from an Apartment<\/em> (detail), 2004-5<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The argument of the book is that starting then – or even in a sense starting with the Bechers – the new art photography found itself compelled to engage again with the set of issues that belonged to \u201cArt & Objecthood\u201d and<\/em> to then what I came subsequently to see was the entire problematic of painting in France between the middle of the eighteenth century and the generation of Manet, And it was thrilling, because I had a sense not just of how this all held together, but that it held together \u2013 if I am right, and who knows if I am right? \u2013 by virtue of a kind of forced engagement with issues that I laid out, first in the criticism of 1966-67 and then in the historical trilogy that followed. So it\u2019s a big, ambitious, quite exciting project; and I\u2019m right, or I\u2019m not right. But the attempt of the book is to make that case.\u2019<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The examples Fried collates testify to what he approvingly refers to as photography\u2019s \u201ctough, difficult and uninviting\u201d qualities. So Thomas Ruff\u2019s portraits are singled out for their blank frontality, their impenetrability and their confrontational scale. As are Jean-Marc Bustamante\u2019s arid and unwelcoming landscapes for their utter lack of event or interest. Jeff Wall\u2019s conspicuous lightbox apparatuses and artfully constructed \u2018near documentary\u2019 scenes deliberately undermine the depiction of everyday life. And Andreas Gursky\u2019s elevated perspectives, extreme distances and intrusive formal elements negate the possibility of imaginative entry into his landscapes. All refute spectatordom and voyeurism, and offer instead the challenge of patient, sustained and rewarding looking<\/em>. As confirmation, Fried cites evidence from gallery visits: \u2018Even when I first started being aware of this I would see people \u2013 young people \u2013 were looking <\/em>and talking. And that\u2019s something that you don\u2019t do with conceptual art, let\u2019s say\u2026or hasn\u2019t been done with a lot of other kinds of art. You don\u2019t actually have to look<\/em> very hard at a Joseph Beuys exhibition. You don\u2019t look<\/em> hard at Young British Artists. You don\u2019t look<\/em> at a Damien Hirst; you go in and have whatever little trivial frisson that junk generates.\u2019<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\u00a9
Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Mario<\/em>, 1981<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Fried\u2019s frames of reference are artistic, not photographic. And bearing in mind the long shadow cast over his work by modernism\u2019s apparent demise, I wonder whether Why Photography Matters<\/em> is not in some respects a work of mourning? Whilst he concedes that \u201cone impulse of the book feels like a return to all sorts of values associated with high modernism\u201d, he is far too upbeat to be described as mournful. \u201cThere is so much that photography can do that painting can\u2019t exactly do. And I don\u2019t feel the emotional tenor of the book has any grief in it \u2013 I enjoyed writing it too much. Frankly, I\u2019m thrilled that this has all happened. My own sense of the emotional tonality of that book is something like glee.\u2019 Glee and, by the sound of it, relief that what he terms the \u201cinterregnum\u201d of minimalism (and what followed) might be over. The emotions are evident as he describes the contrast between the moment of \u201cArt and Objecthood\u201d, and the decade that followed. <\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018One of the ways in which history has been re-written is the idea that by 1964 or 1965 high modernism was over and minimalism was triumphant. And that\u2019s just not the way it was, or felt, to anyone on the scene at the time. \u201866-\u201867 was a very, very thrilling year for high modernism \u2013 it\u2019s the year of Stella\u2019s Eccentric Polygons<\/em>, and beautiful paintings by Noland and Olitski, and great sculpture by Caro. So in my part of the world there was anything but a sense of rout. It felt very triumphalist. \u201cArt and Objecthood\u201d to my mind was being written from a position of artistic and theoretical strength \u2013 it never occurred<\/em> to me as I was writing that piece that anyone in the fullness of time could prefer a completely conventional and, to my mind to this day, conceptually and artistically soft <\/em>piece like Tony Smith\u2019s Die<\/em> to Morris Louis\u2019 Unfurled<\/em> paintings. It just was not conceivable to me and,\u2019 he laughs, \u2018it\u2019s still not conceivable to me!\u2019<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018But then, by the time we enter the \u201870\u2019s there\u2019s no question what\u2019s happening\u2026and to me it looks like, it feels like, a sort of cultural disaster. It didn\u2019t occur to me\u2026I didn\u2019t know how<\/em> things would ever change. And I do think things have, as it were, changed. I lost faith in the dialectic; and I shouldn\u2019t have. But the dialectic has made another massive turn – it started to do it around 1980, but I didn\u2019t know it.\u2019<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018And it happened through photography. Who could have imagined it?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This interivew first published in Art World<\/em> magazine<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why Phototgraphy Matters as Art as Never Before<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

by Michael Fried <\/span><\/p>\n

Yale Univeristy Press, \u00a330
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You don\u2019t actually have to look very hard at a Joseph Beuys exhibition. You don\u2019t look hard at Young British Artists. You don\u2019t  look at a Damien Hirst; you go in and have whatever little trivial frisson that junk generates.”<\/p>\n

Eminent art historian Michael Fried talks to Guy Lane about mediocrity, cultural disaster, and Why Photography Matters as Art As Never Before.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[19],"tags":[393,734,524,3259,66,394,46,359,735,730,732,733,402,49,401,48,341,731],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nMichael Fried on Why Photography Matters - FOTO8<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters - FOTO8\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""You don\u2019t actually have to look very hard at a Joseph Beuys exhibition. You don\u2019t look hard at Young British Artists. You don\u2019t  look at a Damien Hirst; you go in and have whatever little trivial frisson that junk generates."Eminent art historian Michael Fried talks to Guy Lane about mediocrity, cultural disaster, and Why Photography Matters as Art As Never Before.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FOTO8\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Foto8\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/fried_wall_new.jpg?fit=470%2C326&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"470\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"326\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jon\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jon\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jon\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/person\/52655249f7e3f6eff4e0fe2540d65137\"},\"headline\":\"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/\"},\"wordCount\":2169,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"8\",\"becher\",\"blog.\",\"documentary\",\"EI8HT\",\"fine art\",\"foto8\",\"Guy Lane\",\"jeff wall\",\"Michael Fried\",\"minimalism\",\"objecthood\",\"photobook.\",\"photography\",\"photography book\",\"photojournalism\",\"reportage\",\"Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Blogs\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/\",\"name\":\"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters - FOTO8\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/\",\"name\":\"FOTO8\",\"description\":\"The home of photojournalism.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#organization\",\"name\":\"FOTO8\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/foto8logo_blk.gif?fit=124%2C51&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/foto8logo_blk.gif?fit=124%2C51&ssl=1\",\"width\":124,\"height\":51,\"caption\":\"FOTO8\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Foto8\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/foto8\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/person\/52655249f7e3f6eff4e0fe2540d65137\",\"name\":\"Jon\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6993c5976717725ffe3a4e678a401748?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6993c5976717725ffe3a4e678a401748?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jon\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/author\/wpadmin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters - FOTO8","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters - FOTO8","og_description":"\"You don\u2019t actually have to look very hard at a Joseph Beuys exhibition. You don\u2019t look hard at Young British Artists. You don\u2019t  look at a Damien Hirst; you go in and have whatever little trivial frisson that junk generates.\"Eminent art historian Michael Fried talks to Guy Lane about mediocrity, cultural disaster, and Why Photography Matters as Art As Never Before.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/","og_site_name":"FOTO8","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Foto8\/","article_published_time":"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":470,"height":326,"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/fried_wall_new.jpg?fit=470%2C326&ssl=1","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jon","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jon","Est. reading time":"11 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/"},"author":{"name":"Jon","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/person\/52655249f7e3f6eff4e0fe2540d65137"},"headline":"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters","datePublished":"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/"},"wordCount":2169,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#organization"},"keywords":["8","becher","blog.","documentary","EI8HT","fine art","foto8","Guy Lane","jeff wall","Michael Fried","minimalism","objecthood","photobook.","photography","photography book","photojournalism","reportage","Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before"],"articleSection":["Blogs"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/","url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/","name":"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters - FOTO8","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-19T11:28:01+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/michael-fried-on-why-photography-matters\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Michael Fried on Why Photography Matters"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/","name":"FOTO8","description":"The home of photojournalism.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#organization","name":"FOTO8","url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/foto8logo_blk.gif?fit=124%2C51&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/foto8logo_blk.gif?fit=124%2C51&ssl=1","width":124,"height":51,"caption":"FOTO8"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Foto8\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/foto8"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/person\/52655249f7e3f6eff4e0fe2540d65137","name":"Jon","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6993c5976717725ffe3a4e678a401748?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6993c5976717725ffe3a4e678a401748?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jon"},"url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/author\/wpadmin\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/fried_wall_new.jpg?fit=470%2C326&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ejRI-nW","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1733,"url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/jorge-ribalta-on-documentary-and-democracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1484,"position":0},"title":"Jorge Ribalta on Documentary and Democracy","author":"Jon","date":"02 Jul 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Jorge Ribalta, curator of one of the most ambitious surveys of documentary work ever undertaken, talks to Guy Lane about photography's radical potential, its democratic credentials, and the need to outflank the art market system.","rel":"","context":"In "Blogs"","block_context":{"text":"Blogs","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/category\/online\/blogs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\u00a9 Lewis Hine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/hine.jpg?fit=470%2C288&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2353,"url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/is-photography-over\/","url_meta":{"origin":1484,"position":1},"title":"Is Photography Over?","author":"Jon","date":"21 Apr 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cIs Photography Over?\u201d SFMOMA assembles art critics and curators who point at the art world for letting the air out of art photography. The danger here is not only of painting all of photography with a broad brush but of taking the photography of the art world as representative of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogs"","block_context":{"text":"Blogs","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/category\/online\/blogs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Unknown Untitled [Man reflected in mirrors], n.d.; photograph; gelatin silver print; Collection SFMOMA, Gift of Gordon L. Bennett","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/over_unknown_470.jpg?fit=470%2C298&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1622,"url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/uclan-photography-degree-show\/","url_meta":{"origin":1484,"position":2},"title":"UCLAN Photography Degree Show","author":"Jon","date":"27 May 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The private view of the final year exhibition of UCLAN BA (Hons) Photography students is on Thursday 11 June 2009, 6pm - 10pm at Free Range, Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London. Exhibition continues until 15 June.","rel":"","context":"In "events \/ exhibitions"","block_context":{"text":"events \/ exhibitions","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/category\/news\/c72-events-exhibitions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"invitiation.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/invitiation.jpg?fit=470%2C306&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":813,"url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/photo-art\/","url_meta":{"origin":1484,"position":3},"title":"Photo Art","author":"Jon","date":"25 Jun 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"When is a photograph not a photograph? When it's photo art of course. Guy Lane weighs up a new overview that bills itself as a comprehensive survey of photography in the 21st century.","rel":"","context":"In "Blogs"","block_context":{"text":"Blogs","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/category\/online\/blogs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\u00c2\u00a9Charles Freger (Thames & Hudson)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/partblog3.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3796,"url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/photovoice-auction-of-exceptional-photography-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":1484,"position":4},"title":"PhotoVoice Auction of Exceptional Photography 2012","author":"Jon","date":"02 Nov 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Find amazing photography for your collection in the tenth annual PhotoVoice charity auction of exceptional photographs onThursday 20 November 2012.","rel":"","context":"In "events \/ exhibitions"","block_context":{"text":"events \/ exhibitions","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/category\/news\/c72-events-exhibitions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"1_-_ASHLEY_Tim_theonlyblue_72","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/1_-_ASHLEY_Tim_theonlyblue_72.jpg?fit=567%2C567&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/1_-_ASHLEY_Tim_theonlyblue_72.jpg?fit=567%2C567&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/1_-_ASHLEY_Tim_theonlyblue_72.jpg?fit=567%2C567&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1814,"url":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/photographing-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":1484,"position":5},"title":"Photographing America","author":"Jon","date":"27 Aug 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Guy Lane reviews Photographing America a study of the parallels and divergences between Evans and Cartier-Bresson, on the road in the USA.","rel":"","context":"In "Blogs"","block_context":{"text":"Blogs","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/category\/online\/blogs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/hcb1.jpg?fit=470%2C314&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}