Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography is the first book in English to document this phenomenon and to put it into historical context, while also examining the diverse approaches thriving within contemporary photography. Aperture is pleased to release this book in an affordable paperback edition. Author Lyle Rexer examines abstraction at pivotal moments, starting with the inception of photography, when many of the pioneers believed the camera might reveal other aspects of reality. The Edge of Vision traces subsequent explorations-from the Photo-Secessionists, who emphasized process and emotional expression over observed reality, to Modernist and Surrealist experiments. In the decades to follow, in particular from the 1950s through the 1980s, a multitude of photographers-Edward Weston, Aaron Siskind, Barbara Kasten, Ellen Carey, and James Welling among them-took up abstraction from a variety of positions. Finally, Rexer explores the influence the history of abstraction exerts on contemprary thinking about the medium. Many contemporary artists-most prominently Penelope Umbrico, Michael Flomen, and Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin-reject classic definitions of photography's documentary dimension in favor of other conceptually inflected possibilities, somewhere between painting and sculpture, that include the manipulation of process and printing. In addition to Rexer's engagingly written and richly illustrated history, this volume includes a selection of primary texts from and interviews with key practitioners and critics, such as Alvin Langdon Coburn, László Moholy-Nagy, Gottfried Jägger, Silvio Wolf, and Walead Beshty.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Organized in chronological order, this book by Rexer (School of Visual Arts, New York) covers the manifestations of abstraction in photography from the earliest practitioners to the contemporary era. The introduction spells out the author's innovative rethinking of photography's history--notably that it is not simply a medium based on time and representation. The real substance of the book's coverage begins with the pictorialist movement at the beginning of the last century, continuing through the formalism of the 1920s-30s, and ending with a strong presentation of recent work by figures such as Ellen Carey, Marco Breuer, Susan Rankaitis, and Silvio Wolf. Each chapter has an explanatory text, followed by commentaries on the photographers whose work is then illustrated in a portfolio section. The black-and-white, toned, and color reproductions are excellent. A final section contains reprinted textual documents by photographers and writers on various practices. The notes augment a brief bibliography. Rexer, a well-published scholar, demonstrates his independence of mind and thorough knowledge of the field. This is an exciting and provocative book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers. P. C. Bunnell emeritus, Princeton University