Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde: The New Wave in Old Processes

by Lyle Rexer

It started in the 1970s with a group of artists seeking to reengage the physical facts of photography, its materials and processes, by turning to the history of photography for metaphors, technical information, and visual inspiration. By the 1980s it had become a movement with a fervent following. And now, for the first time in book form, Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde charts this full-blown rebellion of contemporary photographers against the advent of digital technology and their reversion to photographic methods used in the nineteenth century.
The photographers in this volume are from all over the world and use a wide array of processes. Among the artists and methods featured are Adam Fuss's Cibachrome photograms, Jayne Hinds Bidaut's tintypes, Jerry Spagnoli's daguerreotypes, Gabor Kerekes's carbon dichromates, and Laurent Millet's toned silver prints. An interview with Sally Mann about her collodion prints and a statement written by Chuck Close about his work with the daguerreotypes give the reader a clear sense of what has driven them to pursue these long-obsolete processes. The book is completed by a glossary of technical terms to enhance the reader's understanding of the technical aspects of each process.

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2002

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Colin]

Super cool and totally inspiring. I've renewed it from the library twice now, and counting.

[Jim]

At excellent look at the range of Antiquarian photographic processes. I've used many of these techniques in my own work and appreciate Rexer's excellent volume.