ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY A BIBLIOGRAPHY PLAN
Megan Radomski
November 22, 2005 Dr. Diane Nahl LIS 601: Introduction to Reference and Information Services Fall 2005
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION
3
Topic and Scope
3
Audience
3
Citation Style
3
SEARCH PROCESS
4
Print Resources Reference Books Books
4 5 6
Databases and Online Resources World Cat Academic Search Premier Art Abstracts Art & Humanities Citation Index Art Museum Image Consortium Art Film Online Artbibliographies Modern Digital Dissertations JSTOR Arts and Sciences Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database Masterfile Premier Project Muse Google Google Scholar Google Print Vivissimo Encyclopedia Britannica Online
7 7 7 8 9 9 9 10 11 12 12 12 13 13 13 14 14 15
CONCLUSION
16
APPENDIX
17
Relevancy Charts Print Resources Databases and Online Resources
17 17 17
Sample Annotated Bibliography General Theory Photographers
21 21 21 22
ENDNOTES
23
2
INTRODUCTION TOPIC AND SCOPE Most Americans own a camera and have taken pictures. From family portraits to snapshots, many consider photography as a means of direct literal representation of people and things. However, photography as an art form consists of specialized topics that do not conform to the general populous’ definition per se. The classification of Abstract Photography developed primarily alongside Abstract Painting in the early 20th century and is still practiced as a style today. While abstraction is inherent in all photographs due to the choices and personal views that a photographer imposes on an image while it is captured, Abstract Photography is generally confined to images that depict their subject in such a way that its form is different in the resulting image than in real life.1 The scope of the project is limited to “straight” photography, not including alternative processes and instruction. My goal is to locate exemplary images and scholarly work in order to illuminate how abstract photography contributes and is situated in an art historical context.
AUDIENCE This plan is intended for primarily students doing art historical research on the topic of Abstract Photography. While this plan is not limited to this group, it is important to note that it does not include instruction or concepts relating to digital photography, but instead focuses on scholarly work and writings that could be useful for future scholarship.
CITATION STYLE For this project I used the citation style of Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations2 for all endnotes as well as sample annotated entries. NOTE: Starred titles (*) have an annotated entry contained in the appendix. 3
SEARCH PROCESS A variety of search strategies were used throughout this project to uncover results. Before beginning the plan, I did a search of the Subject Headings pertinent to my topic within the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH).3 Using these as a guide I was able to derive other controlled vocabulary (abbreviated CV, examples are capitalized) as well as infer pertinent natural language (abbreviated NL, examples are lower case) throughout the process of my searching. Below I have listed those that I found to be the most helpful. LCSH Subject Headings (CV) –
PHOTOGRAHY PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT Key terms (NL) – photography abstract criticism Siskind Descriptors (CV) – PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY VISUAL LITERACY ART, ABSTRACT
PRINT RESOURCES I first targeted print resources during my search. While doing so, with the help of Class Web, I was able to develop a list of Library of Congress call numbers that are key to be aware of while browsing for items on Abstract Photography. 4 While there is a Class specifically on Abstract photography, I found that many items were missclassed there or classed in more general areas.
Call Numbers TR TR 1 TR 9 TR 15 TR 139-40 TR 145 TR 185 TR 656
Photography Periodicals Encyclopedias History (General) Biography General Works (post 1850) Essays, Lectures Abstract Photography
N 3998
Visual Arts (art documentation)
4
Reference Books Browsing the reference shelves at Hamilton Library proved to be quite useful. There were a large number of excellent reference sources that I found in the TR section of the Science and Technology reference area in the addition. I knew this was the proper area from my prior class search using LCSH. Many sources were meant to locate specific photographers or their exhibitions. However, some of the more general sources were quite informative as to how abstraction plays a key role in photography. For example, The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography,5 which contained an entry for “Abstract Photography” as well as several entries for photographers in this area. There were also useful volumes targeted to specific areas of photography such as Modern Art Bibliographical Series: Photography.6 By far the most useful source was The Encyclopedia of Photography: The Complete Photographer, The Comprehensive Guide and Reference For All Photographers.*7 This is an amazing reference source that is easy to use and it also goes into each specific aspect of photography with more specificity than any of the other similar photography reference sources at Hamilton. Probably the most exciting part is that the now famous photographer, Barbara Morgan, writes the abstract photography entry.
5
Books I used the LCSH subject heading “PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT” in order to find print results. When searching this in the University of Hawaii Voyager8 online catalogue, this search yielded a number or results. When I browed the stacks targeting these books, I was quite disappointed. Many of the books that Voyager pointed me to were exhibition catalogues and the images contained did not fit into traditional artistic definitions of abstract, even the ones catalogued specifically at TR 656. Really, the best book result that I found was through a keyword search of “photograph AND abstraction.” This yielded a book, Art of the AvantGardes,9 which puts the topic into a historical context, but it does not focus solely on abstract photography. I performed another search, this time using “Siskind” as a search term, since I knew that Aaron Siskind’s work was an excellent example of abstract photography. This search directed me to a totally different area of the TR section, 140. Browsing in this area I was able to find several more results. For example, Photographers on Photography,*10 which is a book of essays written primarily by photographers. Another book, Photography in the Modern Era,11 is a collection of essays organized by country, ranging from 1913-40, which provides a feeling of the sentiment of photography around the world during that era.
6
DATABASES AND ONLINE RESOURCES WorldCat12 I searched the World Cat OCLC database and I found it to be quite difficult. It taught me quite a bit about how I search for books as well as what the limitations of searching catalogued materials. Knowing the LSCH terms, I first used the term: “PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT” in the descriptor field. This yielded just over two hundred results, many of which were not particularly helpful. I attempted to search “PHOTOGARPHY, ABSTRACT” in the subject phrase field. This yielded slightly fewer results. I found that there were a lot of results that were focused on exhibitions; therefore, I added the limiter “not exhibitions” within the keyword field. This yielded just fewer than two hundred results. Yet, I still found it difficult to sort through the results because there are few descriptors associated with each entry and it is difficult to discern what the book was about from the title. But despite my searching difficulties I was able to filter out a handful of interesting results. For example, I found a dissertation, “Abstract expressionism explored through photographic imagery,”13 that explores intersections between photography and the art movement.
Academic Search Premier14 I chose Academic Search Premier because it is a general topical database that contains materials on the arts. From this database I expected to find mainly general information on my topic, if any. I began my search by using the thesaurus to uncover the controlled vocabulary for the database. I found it to be very similar to the terms used in LCSH, the most focused term being “PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT.” In fact, this was my most successful search along with separating the two terms using a subject search. However, in general all searches done were not particularly relevant. Many results explained techniques or exhibitions. I attributed this pitfall mainly to the general scope of 7
the database. There were a few gems in this database. In the popular photographic magazine, Petersen’s Photographic, there was an article on abstraction.15 This was located by using the “SU = ABSTRACT AND SU=PHOTOGRAPHY.” Similarly, I found another excellent result, in the literal sense, “Abstracts… from realism to abstraction,”16 in the PSA Journal (Photographic Society of America) by using the search “SU=PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT”. One of the most problematic attempts I had was when using “abstract” as a keyword or in default fields. This yielded a great deal of results with nothing to do with my topic due to the fact that “abstract” was interpreted in the bibliographic sense more often than the artistic.
Art Abstracts17 While this is another EBSCO database, because this one is focuses on art I expected more focused results. Again, I first turned to the thesaurus, which, not surprisingly, was very similar. It is interesting that my most successful searches with this database used the same search language as Academic Search Premier, although the result sets were different between the two. For example, searching “SU=PHOTOGRAPHY AND Default Fields=abstract” yielded several very relevant but also specialized in new ways. In “New abstract photography: towards abstraction: the painterly photograph,”18 the author focuses on how several artists are using abstraction in photography in a painterly way. Another interesting result, “Abstract acts: growing market for texture photography,”19 focuses on how abstract, particularly texture, photography is being utilized in advertising. However, less relevant searches did to some degree prove to be fruitful. For example searching “SU Subject = ABSTRACT ART AND Default Field = photography” yielded very few results. Yet one result, “ ‘Evidences’ again: Aaron Siskind and the modernist documentation
8
of art,”*20 is quite helpful. Even though it is about an exhibition, which is often too specific to be a relevant result, it is useful because the article takes a critical approach.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index21 I could find no controlled vocabulary in this database, although you can browse the journal titles represented. The database includes a topic search as well as a general search of titles, keywords, and abstracts. However, there is no way to use anything but natural language in these fields. Using my die-hard search of “TS Topic = photography and abstract,” I received very few and very poor results. The most relevant of which was an article about Man Ray’s use of mathematical concepts in his images.22 Because of the difficulty I was having, I tried to be more creative with my searching. I tried implementing photographers that I knew to practice abstraction to elicit more results. In this case I used Aaron Siskind and Paul Strand. Both of these proved even less useful than the prior searches. I decided it was time to move on.
Art Museum Image Consortium23 According to their website, they are no longer offering subscriptions, the free trial period for their website has ended, but they are keeping the site up for archival purposes. Quite confusing. There is no information on the Hamilton site that distills how to use the site in its current state. Bottom line, I couldn’t get it to work. The Ohiolink (The electronic database consortia for the state of Ohio) website claims that in July it was converted to “The Art Collection.” There is no listing in Hamilton electronic resources for this database.
Art on Film Online24 There was a very limited list of subject terms in this database. Within their search engine I was not able to limit these results or search within them. The terms I found are very general and
9
not specialized at all to my topic. This type of search would only be helpful if I did not have a topic and was looking to browse. For me searching “PHOTOGRAPHY” (my closest match) was a total mess of results. None of which were helpful. The only remotely useful search was searching for “abstract” in the keyword search. This was a very different search from many of the others. It yielded all videos. I feel that some would be at least minimally helpful in establishing artistic theory of abstraction: why is it done, and how is it done. For example the title The Art of Seeing: Abstraction,25 is an interesting source where abstraction is discussed as essential and natural.
ARTbibliographies Modern26 Here I used the thesaurus to locate search terms. The first one I located was “ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM,” I used this in conjunction with “photography” in the Descriptor field. The results were horrible. Many of these results focus on painting and most focus only loosely, if at all, on photography. This was a very strange and not particularly successful search. It is interesting to note that the descriptor search can only be accessed through the thesaurus. However, when I switched the primary descriptor from “ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM” to “ABSTRACT ART,” the results I received were excellent. Many of the results were exhibitions, however, most of these were different than the other exhibition catalog results I had received previously. Here they often focused on exploring how abstraction has manifested itself in photography from a theoretical standpoint rather than merely just a representation of abstract art. Debate on Abstraction: Photography and Abstraction27 is an excellent example.
10
In general, this was an amazing search. Many results put photography into context within the abstract movement. For example, “The Discourse of Abstraction”28 considers how photography and other art forms play a role in abstraction, which is considered as a process. My biggest complaint was that many of the results are in languages other than English, which is to be expected because English is not the sole language used in art history. I attempted my earlier search strategy of implementing a photographer again this time using both “siskind” and “abstract” in the Keyword field. This was strange search. I expected to get several results, which were related directly to exhibitions, which I did. However, I found some overlap between this and the abstract art and photography search. Also there was a great deal of results that were more general. This search picked up a wide variety of exhibition catalogs, for which this database is highly useful.
Digital Dissertations - Dissertation Abstracts online29 These results were interesting because they were so specific (since they were dissertations). However their specificity also made them difficult to search. There was an option to search by subject through the “subject tree,” however you cannot break down the tree far enough to be particularly useful for my purposes. The tree seemed that it would be much more useful in the sciences where it gives the “codes” of the subject tree branches with more specificity. The advanced search feature is quite elegant, and what I primarily used. “Abstract (AB) = photography AND abstract” was where I started again for this search. The results were widely so specific that they were beyond the scope of my topic. Yet, I did find one lone article discussing and criticizing the abstraction used in Alfred Stieglitz’s circle.30 I performed this search again as a keyword search. These results vary more than the first. I was confused as to where the keywords were coming from within the results. Many of the
11
results did not have abstracts therefore it was difficult to distill the degree of relevance. Although I had the same problem of the first search where it was difficult to find results that were specific toward my topic. It was difficult to tap into the language of the author.
JSTOR Arts and Sciences31 I started with the advanced search, which was not particularly advanced, using “All of these words: photography abstract.” These results were not in the field of the arts at all. This was probably the worst result set that I have received. Looking at the topical list of disciplines using the browse function, there were not results that were arts related either. I’m not sure why Hamilton listed this resource as “JSTOR Arts and Sciences” because, aside from music, the arts are not represented.
Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database32 I found no applicable term in the “Keyword” list; therefore I tried a natural language search (Word/Phrase search: photography). The results were highly tilted to medicine and had very little to do with photography at all. The prospect of searching for abstract photography in this database seems to be a poor.
MasterFILE Premier33 I first browsed subject terms and found the term “PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT.” From here directly linked to view results all grouped by type. My favorite result came from the trade publications section. This article, “Abstraction: key to visual literacy,”34 considers how abstracted images play into a role in visual communication. Doing my next standard search, “Default fields = photography AND abstract”, yielded a wide variety of poor results. They included some technique, some exhibitions, and some digital information as well as a few results that had nothing to do with my search. The best of the results
12
(which were not very good) where ones that I had already seen in other EBSCO searches, I therefore saw no point in continuing with this search engine.
Project Muse35 For every search I tried I found a lot of interesting results but none that were particularly helpful. A lot of general philosophical and psychological analyses and many centered on specific countries. No results were elicited that had anything to do directly to do with my topic but only had some secondary relations.
Google36 These results were closer to my search but very random. Because this is a keyword search the results reflected the variations in each author’s interpretation of the their topic. A lot of the links were to sites of galleries or personal sites that did not contain any information outside of their specific realm and it was very difficult to find any other type of information.
Google Scholar37 I first used the basic search (“photograph abstract”), but I found that the entries used abstract mainly in the bibliographic sense. The search yielded almost exclusively scientific articles. I choose to use “photography abstract,” attempting to align my results more closely with my topic, excluding abstracts that contained photographs. This shifted my results closer to photography, but I still had the same problem with abstract. I tried using the advanced search to uncover more applicable results. I searched for “photography abstract” and limited it to results in “Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities,” but I still had the same issues with the misinterpretation of abstract.
13
Google Print38 Here, I searched for “photography abstract” and found the most relevant material of all the Google searches. Here my initial criticism was that there were a lot of books that focused on digital aspects, which would be useful for many applications, but not in my case. I attempted a second search, adding “Siskind” to my search string, this lead to many repetitious results. As I went through the first 100 results I found it difficult to find applicable results, but the ones that I did find would have been impossible to find using any other search technique. One book explores philosophical theories on the nature of art, particularly on photography (Photographs, Objects, Histories: On the Materiality of Images39). Another result, Photography: A Critical Introduction,*40 considers theory from another aspect, justifying theory in art and considering its manifestation on modernity. I was also able to find a rather unique result on Abstract portraiture in the Yoruba culture.*41 After performing another search in Voyager, I found two of these books, Photography: A Critical Introduction and Photography’s Other Histories, at Hamilton Library. I was able to use Google Print as a jumping off point for further research at my own library.
Vivissimo42 I was hoping that with Vivissimo it would be easier to find results because of its hierarchical nature. However, since I was essentially pulling from the same set of data (the web) as google, my hierarchy contained the same poor results: a lot of photo galleries with some links to books for purchase. I thought the “views” cluster would be useful but really it was simply more photo galleries. The only truly useful site I found was under “Influence, Art” from Britannica. I therefore decided to go directly through Hamilton to locate the full article.
14
Encyclopedia Britannica Online43 This turned out to be an amazing resource. The search interpreted the terms, photography and abstract, in context and articles were displayed in a hierarchical format. The first few pages of results were by far the most relevant. They even pointed to exemplary artists.
15
CONCLUSION Through this assignment I was able to learn quite a bit about my topic, primarily that within scholarly writing there is not a great deal of topical division of photography by artistic movement. While in painting many styles, such as Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism, have been defined, in photography this is not the case. There is very little scholarly writing on photography in comparison to painting and what does exist considers photography very broadly or mechanically. I found it quite difficult to find the amount of information that I had hoped, despite the fact that I investigated a variety of sources. I feel that this is able to tell me a great deal about the perception of photography as an art form by scholars as well as photographers. Similarly, this project gave me mixed messages about the nature of information structure. While researching the topic, it often seemed as though my search methods could be directly translated from search to search. However, it became clear that this is often not the case due to differences in interpretation of terms and variance in the specificity of terms used in thesauri. However, these misleading leads taught me a great deal about searching methods. It was able to reinforce for me the importance of knowing all the possible meanings of the search terms I was using as well as the meanings and relationships contained in each set of controlled vocabulary. But it is important to remember that even knowing the structure of a controlled vocabulary is not always enough to conduct a successful search. Sometimes slight variations in the language of the search string and a bit of creativity can lead serendipitously to outstanding searches. Many of my annotated entries were found by browsing or through searches beyond the first attempt. In the future I hope to see more scholarship on Abstract Photography (or at least photography as art) and that I will be able to continue to improve my skills of creative searching.
16
APPENDIX RELEVANCY CHARTS Note that all charts are ordered such that the first row represents the most successful search and the final row represents the least (the one with the lowest percentage of relevant results). Also, all the search strings are described using the terms that each database uses.
Print Resources VOYAGER Search String Subject Heading = PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT Keyword = PHOTOGRAPHY AND ABSTRACTION Subject Heading = ART, ABSTRACT
Number of Results
Relevance
12 1 51
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Relevant
Number of Results
Relevance
185
Somewhat Relevant
244 265
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Relevant
Databases and Online Resources WorldCat Search String Subject, Subject Phrase = PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT NOT Keyword = exhibitions Subject, Subject Phrase = PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT Subject, Descriptor = PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT
17
ACADEMIC SEARCH PREMIER Search String SU Subject Terms = ART, ABSTRACT AND PHOTOGRAPHY SU Subject Terms = PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT Default Fields = abstract AND SU Subject Terms = ART & PHOTOGRAPHY Default Fields = abstract AND SU Subject Terms = PHOTOGRAPHY SU Subject Terms = ART, ABSTRACT AND PHOTOGRAPHIC CRITICISM KW Author-Supplied Keywords = Abstract AND SU Subject Terms = PHOTOGRAPHIC CRITICISM KW Author-Supplied Keywords = Abstract AND SU Subject Terms = PHOTOGRAPHY
ART ABSTRACTS Search String SU Subject = PHOTOGRAPHY AND Default Fields = Abstract SU Subject = PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT SU Subject = ABSTRACT ART AND Default Field = Photography SU Subject = ART AND CULTURE AND Default Fields = Photography
Number of Results
Relevance
5
Somewhat Relevant
19 17
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Relevant
1198
Not Relevant
0 0 0
Number of Results
Relevance
58
Somewhat Relevant
13 5
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Relevant
0
ARTS & HUMANITIES INDEX Search String
Number of Results
Relevance
3 2 0
Somewhat Relevant Highly Not Relevant
Number of Results
Relevance
Keyword Search = abstract Subject Term Search = PHOTOGRAPHY
54 1382
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Not Relevant
Keyword Search = Photography AND Abstract
0
TS Topic = Photography and Abstract TS Topic = Strand AND Abstract TS Topic = Siskind AND Abstract
ART ON FILM ONLINE Search String
18
ARTbibliographies ONLINE Search String Descriptor = ABSTRACT ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY Keyword = Siskind AND Abstract Abstract, AB = photo* AND Keyword = Abstract Descriptor = ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM AND PHOTOGRAPHY
DIGITAL DISSERTATIONS Search String Abstract (AB) = Photography AND Abstract Keyword (KW) = Photography AND Abstract
JSTOR Arts and Sciences Search String All of these words = photography abstract
Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database Search String Word/Phrase search = photography
MasterFILE PREMIER Search String Descriptor = PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT Default Fields = Photography AND Abstract
PROJECT MUSE Search String LC Subject = PHOTOGRAPHY AND All Fields (w/text) = postmodern LC Subject = PHOTOGRAPHY, ABSTRACT LC Subject = PHOTOGRAPHY AND All Fields except text = Abstract All Fields except text = Photography AND Abstract
19
Number of Results
Relevance
73 15 1728
Highly Relevant Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Relevant
73
Highly Not Relevant
Number of Results
Relevance
128 211
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Not Relevant
Number of Results
Relevance
3826
Highly Not Relevant
Number of Results
Relevance
18
Highly Not Relevant
Number of Results
Relevance
16 152
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Relevant
Number of Results
Relevance
31
Somewhat Not Relevant
0 0 0
GOOGLE Search String
Number of Results
Relevance
Photography abstract
5,940,000
Photography abstract criticism
479,000
Somewhat Not Relevant Somewhat Not Relevant
GOOGLE SCHOLAR Search String Photography abstract AND Subject Area = Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities Photograph abstract
GOOGLE PRINT Search String
Number of Results
Relevance
10,100
Somewhat Not Relevant Somewhat Not Relevant
60,500
Number of Results
Relevance
19 4,580
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Relevant
Number of Results
Relevance
Photography abstract SUB CAT – Influence, Art Photography abstract SUB CAT - Views
3 7
Photography abstract
236
Somewhat Relevant Somewhat Not Relevant Somewhat Not Relevant
Photography abstract Siskind Photograph abstract
VIVISSIMO Search String
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA ONLINE Search String Photography and abstract
20
Number of Results
Relevance
1824
Highly Relevant
SAMPLE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY General Morgan, Barbara. “Abstraction in Photography,” in The Encyclopedia of Photography: The Complete Photographer, The Comprehensive Guide and Reference for All Photographers. Reprint. Edited by Willard D. Morgan. New York: Greystone Press, 1970. [TR9 .E465 v.1] Entry by the now famous photographer breaks down photographic abstraction methods into scale, lighting, motion and symbolism. Abstraction is integrated into photographic technique and theory. This article is important because Morgan writes from the perspective of a photographer. HISTORY Encyclopedia Britannica. “Photography, Influence of Abstract Art,” 2005. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. http://search.eb.com/eb/article-36558; accessed 5 Nov. 2005. This article establishes the historical framework for the emergence of abstract photography in the form of photomontage. Because the article is organized historically, it is easy to situate abstract photography in context with its roots and effects. The article includes links to other articles that contain more basic information on artists and general concepts.
Theory Lyons, Nathan ed. Photographers on Photography. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. [TR185 .L9] Reinforces the photograph as an art object via essays by the abstract photographers Man Ray, Paul Strand, and Aaron Siskind. Provides an excellent supplement to writings by academics because the photographers explain why they photographed what they did and what their images mean to them. Exposes the reader to a variety of artistic viewpoints. Includes a section containing biographical notes and a bibliography. Wells, Liz ed. Photography: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2000. [TR145 .P48 2000] This book is heavily biased towards discussion of modern photography. An excellent compliment to the Britannica article, this book critically debates how photography relates to history but from the viewpoint of visual cultural studies. While there is no specific chapter on abstraction, this book weaves it into its lengthy discussions of systems of representation within modernism and postmodernism.
21
NON-WESTERN Sprague, Stephen. “Yoruba Photography,” in Photography’s Other Histories. Edited by Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson. Duram [NC]: Duke University Press, 2003. [TR15. P495 2003] Discusses the Yourba tribe’s traditional photographic portraits. These images occupy the space between abstraction and the inherent realism of portraiture. The article is able to consider how abstraction can be used in a realistic genre and in a non-western culture.
Photographers Bergstein, Mary. “ ‘Evidences’ Again: Aaron Siskind and the Modernist Documentation of Art.” Visual Resources 11(2) (1995): 121-134. [N3998.V57] The author revisits the essay “Evidences” by Harold Rosenberg responding to Rosenberg’s initial conclusions about Siskind’s images. While largely filled with her cynicism towards Rosenberg, she attempts to situate the abstract work of Aaron Siskind alongside contemporary abstract expressionist painters, creating intersections with Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. The author considers elements of design as key to Siskind’s compositions, particularly color and texture. Chiarenza, Carl. Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1982. [TR140.S54 C47 1982] Contains excellent examples of abstraction using scale. Text is organized chronologically and is “annotated” with a large number of exemplary pictures. It can be somewhat challenging to browse for information by images because the meat of the text is guided by a historical and biographical perspective rather than artistic.
22
ENDNOTES 1
Barbara Morgan, “Abstraction in Photography,” in The Encyclopedia of Photography: The
Complete Photographer, The Comprehensive Guide and Reference For All Photographers, ed. Willard D. Morgan (New York: Greystone Press, 1970) , 57-8. [Ref TR9.E465 v.1] 2
Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). [LB2369 .T8 1996] 3
Library of Congress, Library of Congress Subject Headings, 27th ed. (Washington: Library of
Congress, 2004). [Z695 .U4749] 4
Library of Congress Classification Web, “Classification Web,” [home page on-line]; available
from http://classificationweb.net/; Internet; accessed 12 Nov. 2005. 5
K. Francis, “Abstract Photography,” in The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 3d ed., ed.
Leslie Stroebel and Richard Zakia. (Boston: Focal Press, 1993). [Ref TR9.F6 1993] 6
Modern Art Bibliographical Series: Photography. (Santa Barbara, CA: Clio Press, 1993). [Ref
TR145.P4] 7
Barbara Morgan, “Abstraction in Photography,” in The Encyclopedia of Photography: The
Complete Photographer, The Comprehensive Guide and Reference For All Photographers, ed. Willard D. Morgan. (New York: Greystone Press, 1970) , 57-8. [Ref TR9.E465 v.1] 8
University of Hawaii, “Hawai’i Voyager: Libraries of the University of Hawai’i System,”
[home page on-line]; available from http://uhmanoa.lib.hawaii.edu/webvoy.htm; Internet; accessed 29 Oct. 2005. 9
Steve Edwards and Paul Wood, eds., Art of the Avant-Gardes (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 2004). [N6490.A786 2004]
23
10
Nathan Lyons, ed., Photographers on Photography (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1966). [TR185 .L9] 11
Christopher Phillips, ed., Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical
Writing, 1913-1940 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Aperture, 1989). [TR185.P5 1989] 12
OCLC, “WorldCat,” FirstSearch [database page on-line]; accessed 4 Nov. 2005.
13
Cheryl G. Correll, “Abstract Expressionism Explored Through Photographic Imagery” (M.A.
diss., Central Michigan University, 1999). 14
EBSCO Host Research Databases, “Academic Search Premier,” EBSCOhost [database page
on-line]; accessed 29 Oct. 2005. 15
Ron Eggers, “Abstractions,” Petersen’s Photographic 29 (2) (2001) : 62. [TR1.P46]
16
Albert Sadler, “Abstracts… from realism to abstraction,” PSA Journal 62 (9) (1996) : 26.
17
EBSCO Host Research Databases, “Art Abstracts,” EBSCOhost [database page on-line];
accessed 29 Oct. 2005. 18
Roy Exley, “New abstract photography: towards abstraction: the painterly photograph,”
Creative Camera 358 (1999) : 24-9. 19
Howard Rombough, “Abstract acts: growing market for texture photography,” Creative
Review 15 (1995) : 33-4. 20
Mary Bergstein, “ ‘Evidences’ again: Aaron Siskind and the modernist documentation of art,”
Visual Resources 11 (2) (1995) : 121-34. [N3998 .V57] 21
The Thomson Corporation, “Art & Humanities Citation Index,” ISI Web of Knowledge
[database page on-line]; accessed 5 Nov. 2005. 22
KA. Hoving, “Vision and satisfied passion: Man Ray's mathematical objects,” History of
24
Photography 25 (2) (Sum 2001) : 193-200. 23
“AMICO,” The Art Museum Image Consortium [home page on-line]; available from
http://www.amico.org/; Internet; accessed 5 Nov. 2005. 24
UNET, “Art on Film,” Program for Art on Film, Inc. [home page on-line]; available from
http://www.artfilm.org/artscripts/searchengine.cfm; Internet; accessed 5 Nov. 2005. 25
The Art of Seeing: Abstraction, prod. and dir. Stelios Roccos, 10 min., ACI Films for the
American Federation of Arts, 1968, videocassette. 26
CSA, “ARTbibliographies Modern,” CSA Illumina [database page on-line]; accessed 5 Nov.
2005. 27
Sanford Wurmfeld and Rosalind E. Krauss, Debate on Abstraction: Photography and
Abstraction (New York: Hunter College Art Gallery, n.d. 1989). 28
John Welchman, “The Discourse of Abstraction,” Agenda (Australia) 25 (Sept.-Oct. 1992) : 7-
9. 29
ProQuest Digital Dissertations, “Digital Dissertations,” UMI ProQuest [database on-line];
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