Background information
As
photography became an increasingly accessible medium in the twentieth
century, the popularity of the photographic album exploded, yielding a
wonderful range of objects made for varying purposes—to memorialize,
document (officially or unofficially), promote, or educate and sometimes
simply to channel creative energy. Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography
traces the rise of the album from the turn of last century to the
present day, showcasing some of the most important examples in the
history of the medium, as collected by the Library of Congress. The book
includes albums by acclaimed photographers and filmmakers, among them
Walker Evans, Danny Lyon, Holland Day, Jim Goldberg, Dorothea Lange,
Duane Michals, Leni Riefenstahl and W. Eugene Smith, as well as
lesser-known but equally significant albums. Each album is beautifully
reproduced over numerous spreads with an accompanying detailed
explanatory text. An insightful history of the album format, as well as
an informative essay about caring for and restoring albums are included.
At a time when the physical collection of photographs is becoming
increasingly immaterial through the ascent of digital publishing, and at
a time in which radical shifts have occurred in the status of handmade
artists' objects, Photographic Memory is a comprehensive illustrated history of a form of presentation that became something of an art in itself.
- Format
- HC, 25 x 30,5 cm., 288 pp., text language: English