Images Performing History
Photography and Representations of the Past in European Art after 1989
Katarzyna Ruchel Stockmans (Author),
The operative role of the photographic media in making and remaking history.
History is increasingly made in images, not only because its records are largely photographic but also because our ideas about the past are formed in visual terms. This book offers a discussion of contemporary art practices which question the received notions of historical representations after the pivotal changes of 1989 in Europe. These art practices reveal, in different ways, the operative role of the photographic media in making and remaking history. Not limited to a particular artistic medium, they demonstrate how history is forged through enacting or re-enacting its past forms, while, on the other hand, they indicate how copying and quoting can contribute to creating a new, operative aesthetics. By foregrounding a performative character of images, art is shown to construct an alternative knowledge of the past. Among others the works of the following artists are discussed in this book: Zofia Kulik, Yael Bartana, Harun Farocki and Andrej Ujic, Luc Tuymans, Dierk Schmidt.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Acknowledgements Introduction: Unforeseen Histories
1. 1989, Photography and History, Representation End of (Certain) Histories Manifold Ends of History: Philosophy, Politics and Culture Photography and History—Four Patterns Questioning Representation: Art and History
2. The Revolution as a Technical Disturbance Televised Event—the New Image of the Revolutionary Masses Opposition and Identity “We are Victorious, the Television is with us” Revolution as a Return—1989 versus 1917
3. Chaosmos: Montage as Spatial History Zofia Kulik: Performative Archivist and Spatial Historian From Ornamental Structure to Self-representation Cyclical versus Linear Time—Gothic Window Photography, Archive, History 152
4. Future Pasts of a Community Return of Nightmares Reality and Fiction Wherever I Am Re-enactment and Utopian Community Bartana’s Nostalgic Projection 5. Painting History Photographically Between Photography and Painting Nationalism and Painting Private versus Public History Coda: Dierk Schmidt’s History in the Present
Afterword—History on an Endless Trial
Notes Bibliography
De diverse kunstenaars in Ruchel-Stockmans’ onderzoek delen een fascinatie voor propaganda en de (verraderlijke) werking van beelden in de representatie en totstandkoming van geschiedenis. 'Images Performing History' biedt daarbij soms treffende beschouwingen, al vraagt dit onderzoek om een aangescherpt vervolg in de huidige, onstuimige tijd – de geschiedenis is allerminst voorbij.
Anne Ruygt, De Witte Raaf, Editie 196 november-december 2018
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