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Stop Reading! Look! Modern Vision and the Weimar Photographic Book
Pepper Stetler
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In the second half of the Weimar period (1918–33), photographers produced books consisting almost entirely of sequenced images. The subjects ranged widely: from plants and nature to the modern metropolis, from exotic cultures to the German Volk, from anonymous workers to historical figures. While many of the books were created by key practitioners and theorists of modern photography, scholars have rarely addressed the significance of the book format to modern conceptions of photographic meaning. The term "photo-essay" implies that these photographic books were equivalent to literary endeavors, created by replacing text with images, but such assumptions fail to explore the motivations of the books' makers.
Stop Reading! Look! argues that Weimar photographic books stood at the center of debates about photography's ability to provide uniquely visual forms of perception and cognition that exceed the capacity of the textual realm. Each chapter provides a sustained analysis of a photographic book, while also bringing the cultural, social, and political context of the Weimar Republic to bear on its relevance and meaning.
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Cover
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Title
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Copyright
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Dedication
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Acknowledgments
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Contents
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Introduction: How to Read a Photographic Book
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Teaching Modern Vision
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Old Media/New Media
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One Visualizing the Book: László Moholy-Nagy’s Malerei Photographie Film
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The New Vision
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A “Purely Optical” Book
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Teaching Film und Foto
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“The New Visual Literature”
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Two The Value of Photography: Albert Renger-Patzsch’s Die Welt ist Schön
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Renger-Patzsch and the Photobook Industry
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Heise and the Search for Modern Kunstwollen
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Sachlichkeit and the Photographic Book
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Three Natural History: Karl Blossfeldt’s Urformen der Kunst
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The Return of the Urform
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The Origins of the Urform
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Forms of History
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Four Facing the Photographic Book: Helmar Lerski’s Köpfe des Alltags
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Laying Bare the Soul
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The Cinematic Book
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Reading the Face
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Death Masks
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Conclusion: After the Weimar Photographic Book
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Notes
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Bibliography
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Index
Citable Link
Published: 2015
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
- 978-0-472-12138-0 (ebook)
- 978-0-472-11966-0 (hardcover)