Fotografien / Photographies / Photographs 1985–1998

by Jean Baudrillard (Photographer), Peter Weibel (Editor), Christa Steinle (Preface)

Exhibition catalogue of Im Horizont des Objekts. Objekte in diesem Spiegel sind näher als sie erscheinen. Fotografien 1985-1998 / A l'horizon de l'objet : Les objets dans ce miroir sont plus proches qu'ils n'apparaissent : photographies, 1985-1998 / Within the Horizon of the Object: Objects in This Mirror are Closer than They Appear: Photographs, 1985-1998, at the Neue Galerie Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum (Jan. 9 to Feb. 14, 1999).
Trilingual edition in German/French/English.

Jean Baudrillard is one of France's leading modern philosophers and has had a tremendous impact on contemporary art. This book presents, for the first time, Baudrillard's own photographs together with his collected texts on photographic theory. He began taking photographs during his travels about twelve years ago, and has taken pictures intensively for the past six years. In his pictures he strolls through the world of objects, looking for insignificant and arbitrary things. According to essayist Peter Weibel, the laconic nature of things is the reason for their beauty, and Baudrillard photographs this beauty in a laconic way -- without the pathos of history, without the constructed objectivity or staging of art photography. His photographic glance literally rests on the surface of objects and celebrates their visual appearance.

Genres: Photography

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet, with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, critique of economy, social history, aesthetics, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his most well-known works are Seduction (1978), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Nevertheless, Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really couldn't stand the essays in this book, but Baudrillard was an interesting photographer.