The Cinematic

Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art

by David Campany (Editor)

Key writings by artists and theorists chart the shifting relationship between film and photography and how the rise of cinema forced photography to make a virtue of its stillness.The cinematic has been a springboard for the work of many influential artists, including Victor Burgin, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Stan Douglas, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Cindy Sherman, and Jeff Wall, among others. Much recent cinema, meanwhile, is rich with references to contemporary photography. Video art has taken a photographic turn into pensive slowness; photography now has at its disposal the budgets and scale of cinema. This addition to Whitechapel's Documents of Contemporary Art series surveys the rich history of creative interaction between the moving and the still photograph, tracing their ever-changing relationship since early modernism.

Still photography--cinema's ghostly parent--was eclipsed by the medium of film, but also set free. The rise of cinema obliged photography to make a virtue of its own stillness. Film, on the other hand, envied the simplicity, the lightness, and the precision of photography. Russian Constructivist filmmakers considered avant-garde cinema as a sequence of graphic "shots"; their Bauhaus, Constructivist and Futurist photographer contemporaries assembled photographs into a form of cinema on the page. In response to the rise of popular cinema, Henri Cartier-Bresson exalted the "decisive moment" of the still photograph. In the 1950s, reportage photography began to explore the possibility of snatching filmic fragments. Since the 1960s, conceptual and postconceptual artists have explored the narrative enigmas of the found film still. The Cinematic assembles key writings by artists and theorists from the 1920s on--including L�szl� Moholy-Nagy, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Victor Burgin, Jeff Wall, and Catherine David--documenting the photography-film dialogue that has enriched both media.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction, Film, Theory, Creative

222 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm very interested in the connections between film and still photography. This book gave me po-mo gradschool flashbacks, and not in a good way. I think I would have learned more about the connection between film and photography by watching La Jetée again, followed by Le Carabiniers (for the great postcard scene). On the whole, this book is worth skimming and reading seletively. There are a few really interesting pieces in here, including a conversation between Jeff Wall, who I'm not a big fan of, and filmmaker Mike Figgis.

[Amber Dacanay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crewdson interview omg yay (the guy thinks about his art in a very interesting way that resonates with me a lot :D)

Also one of the texts described photography as a freezing of dialectics or something along those lines + my brain found that interesting :0

[emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only three stars because the middle bits made me feel a bit bored/distracted. Mostly enjoyed the early chapters and the last chapter.

[Leticia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cinematic is one of the books from the new compilation “Documents of Contemporary Art”. All books on this series contain important art essays from different topics and years.
I just finished reading this one in particular, and I would recommend it to anyone interested on photography, video and cinema.
The cinematic contains a lot about the history of cinema and photography and how they have been influencing each other as art forms since their beginning. The way we pensive photos and movies is a topic that has been under discussion from a long time and that has been challenged by artists and film makers like Chris Marker (La Jetee) and Jeff Wall both included in this book.
I would recommend looking at the complete list of books from this series and read them all or at list one since their historical content is really valuable. You won’t regret it.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introductory overview of how we understand "the cinematic" as having both elements of duration and motion.

[John Shinn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is intriguing so far. Looking forward to actually getting into the meat of the book and learning something interesting.

[AJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

While astute and probably really learned its thick and feels needlessly pretentious

[Anastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice collection of essays on the complicated relationship between film and photography, even though somewhat redundant. Would love to if someone put a similar collection about page and screen!

[Mills College Library]

778.53 C5749 2007