2009
First Published
4.35
Average Rating
274
Number of Pages
From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. The Edge of The Rise of Abstraction in Photography is the first book in English to document this phenomenon and to put it into historical context, while also examining the diverse approaches thriving within contemporary photography. Author Lyle Rexer examines abstraction at pivotal moments, starting with the inception of photography, when many of the pioneers believed the camera might reveal other aspects of reality. The Edge of Vision traces subsequent explorations—from the Photo Secessionists, who emphasized process and emotional expression over observed reality, to Modernist and Surrealist experiments. In the decades to follow, in particular from the 1940s through the 1980s, a multitude of photographers—Edward Weston, Aaron Siskind and Barbara Kasten among them—took up abstraction from a variety of positions. Finally, Rexer explores
Avg Rating
4.35
Number of Ratings
62
5 STARS
55%
4 STARS
26%
3 STARS
19%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Lyle Rexer
Author · 5 books
Lyle Rexer was born in 1951. He was educated at the University of Michigan, Columbia University, and Merton College, Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University. He is the author of several books, including Photography’s Antiquarian Avant-Garde: The New Wave in Old Processes (2002); Jonathan Lerman: The Drawings of an Artist with Autism (2002); How to Look at Outsider Art (2005); and The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography (2009). In addition to his book projects, Lyle Rexer has published many catalogue essays dealing with contemporary artists and collections and contributes articles on art, architecture, photography and culture to a variety of publications, including The New York Times, Art in America, Modern Painters, Aperture, Metropolis, Parkett, Tate, etc., and Raw Vision. As a curator, he has organized exhibitions in the United States and internationally, including “Fernando Canovas,” a retrospective of the Argentine painter held at the Insitiut Valencia d’Art Modern. For the Aperture Foundation he curated “The Edge of Vision,” an exhibition of contemporary abstract photography, which is traveling through 2013. Lyle Rexer teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and is a columnist for Photograph magazine.
