Monday, February 15, 2010

Some thoughts on serial imagery from the New Topographics.
'The whole notion of series allows you to see that a fairly coherent formal position was being worked out...The series is what gives the individual photograph its interest...'
Frank Gohlke, quoted in New Topographics, essay by Britt Salvesen, as introduction to the book New Topographics, 2009.


'There are sufficient indications in the emergence of Serial Imagery over the past decade in the United States that the rhythms attendant upon the Serial style ritually celebrate, if only obliquely or subliminally, overtones of American life...Serial Imagery is particularly fitted to reflect its contemporary environment, because of the open and unplanned nature of its internal dialogue, its highly systematic yet flexible process of production, its high degree of specialization, and its narrow deep focus on a single issue.'
John Coplan, Ibid