Disappearing Witness: Change in Twentieth-Century American Photography
Very few histories of photography read like novels...Disappearing Witnessis... a pleasurable experience in form and content... Garner not only knows her subject but understands it: she moves with extreme ease in it and takes us for an interesting guided tour, one that does not pretend to be blandly objective but clearly defines her learned vision.(Bruno ChalifourAfterimage)This handsome and well-illustrated book surveys the history of American photography since the 1920s, arguing that the 1960s marked the beginning of a profound shift in photographic practice... Garner writes in a clear, straightforward manner, laying out her two-part argument in a series of topical chapters. For the pre-1960s period, the age of 'spontaneous witness,' she focuses on fine art photography, documentary photography, and the use of photography in the great picture magazines. For the later period, she organizes her chapters around the issues of artistic style in order to emphasize her argument about photographers' increasing disengagement with the world and their growing interest in self-expression... It is the bold historian who even attempts such an argument, andDisappearing Witnessprovides believers and doubters alike with a clear structure against which to test their own ideas about the shape of photography over the past ninety years.(Martha A. SandweissHistory: Reviews of New Books)This well-written, readable book would be best used as a course resource in 20th-century photography.(Choice)Clearly written, and illustrated with well-chosen images,Disappearing Witnessdescribes the significant paradigm shift in photography over the course of the twentieth century, namely the move from direct observation of the world through the lens to a more critical relationship between the act of photographic observation and picture-making. Gretchen Garner's unusual and welcome premise is well-reasoned and persuasive.(A. D. Coleman)