The Contest of Meaning Critical Histories of Photography

Photography's great success gives us the impression that the major questions that have haunted the medium are now resolved. On the contrary - the most important questions are just beginning to be asked. These fourteen essays, with over 200 illustrations, critically examine and challenge the prevailing formalist values of late modernism that have been applied to the medium and suggest new ways to explain the history of photography. The essays examine the social consequences of aesthetic practice and look at how photography constructs sexual difference, how it is used to promote class and national interests, and at the politics of photographic truth. Richard Bolton is Associate Professor and Chairperson in the Art Studio Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Richard Bolton is an artist and writer who has exhibited and published widely. He has taught in the Visible Language Workshop at MIT's Media Laboratory and at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester.