Login
Create Account
Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
 |
Scissors, Paper, StoneExpressions of Memory in Contemporary Photographic Art |
eBook Available
Is photography an art of memory?
Making a connection between photography and memory is almost automatic. Should it be? In Scissors, Paper, Stone Martha Langford explores the nature of memory and art. She challenges the conventional emphasis on the camera as a tool of perception by arguing that photographic works are products of the mind - picturing memory is, first and foremost, the expression of a mental process.
Langford organizes the book around the conceit of the child's game scissors, paper, stone, using it to ground her discussion of the tensions between remembering and forgetting, the intersection of memory and imagination, and the relationship between memory and history. Scissors, Paper, Stone explores the great variety of photographic art produced by Canadian artists as expressions of memory. Their work, including images by Carl Beam, Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, Donigan Cumming, Stan Denniston, Robert Houle, Robert Minden, Michael Snow, Diana Thorneycroft, Jeff Wall, and Jin-me Yoon, is presented as part of a rich interdisciplinary study of contemporary photography and how it has shaped modern memory.
Langford organizes the book around the conceit of the child's game scissors, paper, stone, using it to ground her discussion of the tensions between remembering and forgetting, the intersection of memory and imagination, and the relationship between memory and history. Scissors, Paper, Stone explores the great variety of photographic art produced by Canadian artists as expressions of memory. Their work, including images by Carl Beam, Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, Donigan Cumming, Stan Denniston, Robert Houle, Robert Minden, Michael Snow, Diana Thorneycroft, Jeff Wall, and Jin-me Yoon, is presented as part of a rich interdisciplinary study of contemporary photography and how it has shaped modern memory.
Details
368 Pages, 9 x 8.125
80 b&w and 16 colour photographs
ISBN 9780773532113
June 2007
Formats: Paperback, Cloth, eBook
"Langford advances an uncommonly rich conception of memory, and Scissors, Paper, Stone is an important contribution to the growing scholarship on Canadian photographic art." TOPIA
"Langford has a long, intimate and thoroughgoing knowledge of her subject. Scissors, Paper, Stone complements the earlier work [of Langford] and greatly extends upon it. Demanding, yet utterly absorbing, it can be read as a piece or, and this is what I would recommend, be absorbed slowly over time, piece by piece, chapter by chapter, relished." Susan Close, Border Crossings
"An important and beautifully written book - an absolute tour de force. The exceptionally intimate tone is one of the memorable aspects of the book along with the formidable scholarship and critical acumen. Langford performs this high stakes, high wire act without a slip." Laura Wexler, American studies and women's, gender, and sexuality studies, Yale University
"Martha Langford is one of the most insightful, probing, and well-informed commentators on recent photographic practice in this country. This study marks a culmination of her thinking about documentary photography and photo-based art over the past three decades. The impressive range of sources makes us see recent Canadian photography in a new light." Carol Payne, art history, Carleton University
"Langford has a long, intimate and thoroughgoing knowledge of her subject. Scissors, Paper, Stone complements the earlier work [of Langford] and greatly extends upon it. Demanding, yet utterly absorbing, it can be read as a piece or, and this is what I would recommend, be absorbed slowly over time, piece by piece, chapter by chapter, relished." Susan Close, Border Crossings
"An important and beautifully written book - an absolute tour de force. The exceptionally intimate tone is one of the memorable aspects of the book along with the formidable scholarship and critical acumen. Langford performs this high stakes, high wire act without a slip." Laura Wexler, American studies and women's, gender, and sexuality studies, Yale University
"Martha Langford is one of the most insightful, probing, and well-informed commentators on recent photographic practice in this country. This study marks a culmination of her thinking about documentary photography and photo-based art over the past three decades. The impressive range of sources makes us see recent Canadian photography in a new light." Carol Payne, art history, Carleton University
Martha Langford holds a Concordia University Research Chair in Art History and is the author of A Cold War Tourist and His Camera and Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums.
Introduction: Scissors, Paper, Stone 3
Colour plates follow page 10
PART ONE - SCISSORS
Remembering and Forgetting 13
Lives of the Artists 22
Reflections on Reflection 41
A Forgotten Man 57
Memory/False Memory 75
PART TWO - PAPER
Memory and Imagination 97
Exchange Places 106
Object-Image-Memory 125
Persistent Paths 143
Mimics 164
PART THREE - STONE
Memory and History 189
Agit-prompters 200
Repossessions 217
The Pictures That We Have 232
Flashbulb Memories? 250
Markers 267
Conclusion: Is Photography an Art of Memory? 286
Acknowledgments 291
Notes 293
Bibliography 313
Index 335
Colour plates follow page 10
PART ONE - SCISSORS
Remembering and Forgetting 13
Lives of the Artists 22
Reflections on Reflection 41
A Forgotten Man 57
Memory/False Memory 75
PART TWO - PAPER
Memory and Imagination 97
Exchange Places 106
Object-Image-Memory 125
Persistent Paths 143
Mimics 164
PART THREE - STONE
Memory and History 189
Agit-prompters 200
Repossessions 217
The Pictures That We Have 232
Flashbulb Memories? 250
Markers 267
Conclusion: Is Photography an Art of Memory? 286
Acknowledgments 291
Notes 293
Bibliography 313
Index 335
Finalist
Harold Adams Innis Prize (Social Sciences)
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (2008)
Harold Adams Innis Prize (Social Sciences)
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (2008)
