Remarks on Chapter One: Three Beginnings

摘要

Chapter 1 of Fried’s Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before n1 is devoted to the early nwork (in this order) of Hiroshi Sugimoto (American, born Japan 1948), Cindy Sherman n(American, born 1954), and Jeff Wall (Canadian, born 1946). The chapter entitled ‘ Three nBeginnings ’ could have been called ‘ Four Beginnings ’ because in it we are introduced to nhow Michael Fried, who is best known as a writer on painting and sculpture, came to study nthe art of photography. In his capacity as a professional art critic, it appears that Fried fi rst npublicly acknowledged photography in the spring of 1965, when he referenced the names nof photographers Rudolf Burckhardt, Ernest Le Clair, and John Reeves as the makers of the nphotographs employed to reproduce paintings for the catalogue of the exhibition Three nAmerican Painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella