AH231
History of Photography II: 1900-2003
Peter Bacon Hales, Professor
Spring, 2003
Monday, Wednesday: 9-1015am
107 Henry Hall
Office: 208-A Henry Hall
Office Hours: MW 115-3 and by appointment
Phone: 413-2461
email: pbhales@uic.edu
website: www.uic.edu/~pbhales
Required Books:
RH=Robert Hirsch, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography
VG=Vicki Goldberg, (ed.), Photography in Print
Optional/Recommended: John Szarkowski, Photography Until Now
On Reserve: Jonathon Green, American Photography; Peter Hales, Silver Cities: The Photography of American Urbanization,
Grade Requirements: 2 (2-3 page, typed) papers............25%
Midterm.....................................25%
Final...........................................30%
Class Participation .....................20%
This course is the second half of a two-semester survey of the history of photography. We will examine photography as an artistic medium, as a part of everyday life, as a central part of modern culture, and as a commercial profession. Lectures will be held from 9:00-10:15 each class day. Please feel free to interrupt to question or comment within sane limits. The short papers will serve as practical excursions in looking at photographs, evaluating their importance, and placing them in some non-personal context. NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED WITHOUT PRIOR APPROVAL! Midterm and final exams will include identifications of relevant terms and concepts, and short essays. As the semester is exceedingly short, I strongly discourage absences, and I will be taking attendance; Your record of attendance will be a factor in your grade. Readings are due at the beginning of each scheduled weekly class. You are already a week late on the first reading assignment! Don't think you can ignore the reading– your likelihood of passing will be close to nil.
Week Beginning:
I:January 13
Monday: Thinking about photographs: A series of exercises in looking.
Wednesday: Photography, Modernism, and Modernity– Conceiving of Photography as Art
Linked Ring, Photosecession, 291, Camera Work, the Kodak, Paul Strand, Gertrude Kasebier
Readings:; RH Chapters 8 and 9; VG 214-222, 271-272
II: January 20: The Birth of the Documentary Mode: Photography’s Realist Tradition
Monday: NO CLASS Martin Luther King Day
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, Lewis Hine, Survey, The Pittsburgh Survey, the Tenement House Exhibition, Frances Benjamin Johnston
Readings:; RH Chapter 12; Hales, Silver Cities, chapters 5+6 (on reserve), VG 238-253
III: January 27: Photography as a Modernist Art: Classical Formalism and Abstraction in the Real
Eugene Atget, Paul Strand, Alfred Stiegliz, Berenice Abbott, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, f/64
Readings:RH chapter 11; VG 254-258, 276-290
IV:February 3 New Art for a New World: Modernism as Artistic Radicalism
dada, Surrealism, Man Ray, the photogram, Brassai
Readings: RH Chapter 10; VG 339-348. Begin to think about your first writing assignment. Go to the Art Institute of Chicago, where three separate 20th century exhibitions are up; go to the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, where three more major exhibitions are showing; go to the main photography galleries in the city (look them up in the Friday section of the Trib or the Sun-Times or Chicago magazine). Find work that interests you. Look at lots of work. Do a full gallery scene.
V: February 10 Radical Photography, Radical Politics, and Mass Media
Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Rodchenko, John Heartfield, the worker photography movement
Readings: VG 319-334
VI: February 17 Public Pictures in America: The Documentary ‘30s
Life, The Farm Security Administration [F.S.A.], Roy Emerson Stryker, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, Russell Lee, Ben Shahn
Readings: RH reread chapter 12; VG 349-369
VII: February 24
Photojournalism and the Public Press, 1920-1950
4x5 Speed Graphic/Speed Back/Flash Bulbs, Weegee (Arthur Fellig); Eduard Steichen, Readings: RH Chapter 14; VG 387-393, 402-419
VIII: March 3 Big Culture and the Picture Magazines after World War II
Life, Look, Colliers, Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, the photo-essay
Readings: VG 384-386, 432-441
IX: March 10
For and Against Big Culture: Global Unity vs. Beat Despair– The Family of Man vs. Robert Frank and The Americans
Robert Frank; the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA)
Readings: RH Chapter 15; VG 400-401, Green, American Photography, chapters 2 and 5 (on reserve)
FIRST PAPER DUE WEDNESDAY March 12
March 17-23: Spring Break
X:March 24 Mysticism, Modernism Formalism: Aperture ID and the New Formalism,
Ansel Adams, Minor White, Edward Weston, Paul Caponigro
Readings: NR Chapter 12, VG 394-399, 422-430, Green, American Photography, chapters 3, 4 (on reserve)
XI: March 31 “New Documentary” and the Arrival of Ironic Realism
John Szarkowski, MoMA, New Documents, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Chauncey Hare, Nicholas Nixon,.
Readings: VG 452-520, Green, American Photography, chapters 6,7,8 (on reserve)
Now: Contemporary Photography
XII: April 7: Crossing Over: Mass Media as Art, Art as Mass Media
Sebastiao Salgado, Magnum, Mary Ellen Mark, Vogue, Steven Meisel, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Nan Goldin, William Wegman
Reading: RH Chapter 18
XIII: April 14: Photo-Based
Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, the Starn Twins, Gilbert and George, Alfredo Jaar
Reading: Mary Warner Marien, Photography: A Cultural History, chapter 7 (on reserve)
XIV April 21 Photography As Assault
Robert Mapplethorpe, National Endowment for the Arts, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince
Reading: TBA
XV April 28 Now.
Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth. Richard Prince; Gillian Wearing, Dawood Bey; Krzysztof Wodiczko, Jeff Wall
Readings: SECOND PAPER DUE WEDNESDAY May 1
Final Exam will be held on Tuesday, May 6 from 1030-1230. There are no makeup examinations with the possible exception of serious illness with medical excuse (written, with phone number of m.d. available)!