Roland Barthes
[Writer, critic, and theorist, b. 1915, Cherbourg, d. 1980, Paris.]
In an initial period, photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs.
André Breton
[Artist, writer, editor, and critic, b. 1896, Tinchebray, France, d. 1966, Paris, France.]
It will in the end, be admitted that everything, in effect
is an image and that the least object which has no symbolic role assigned to it is capable of standing for absolutely anything.
Nathan Lyons
[Photographer, writer, and curator, b. 1930, Jamaica, New York, d. 2016, Rochester, New York.]
Photography has achieved an unprecedented mirroring of the things in our culture. We have pictured so many aspects and objects of our environment in the form of photographs (motion pictures and television) that the composite of these representations has assumed the proportions and identity of an actual environment.
Geoffrey Batchen
[Photohistorian, b. 1956, Australia, lives in Wellington, New Zealand.]
Most importantly, postmodernism comes down on the side of photography and power, not photography as power. As a consequence, photography continues to be conceived as an inconsequential vehicle or passage for “real” powers that always originate elsewhere.
Anthony Aziz
... with the end of truth in photography has come a corresponding loss of trust; every image, every representation, is now a potential fraud. And as the eternal debate rages on about the appearance of truth and
truth itself, simulation is the only truth we can trust.
Luigi Ghirri
[Photographer, b. 1943, Scandiano, Italy, d. 1992, Reggio Emilia, Italy.]
Instead of accepting the challenge of complexity, photography shunted itself into a tight corner—the reproduction of itself.
Lucy Lippard
[Critic and writer, b. 1936, New York, lives in Galisteo, New Mexico.]
There is indeed something omnivorous about the act of photography. It offers a way of responding to everything about everything.
Christian Boltanski
[Artist, b. 1944, Paris, lives in Paris.]
... in the eyes of its visitors, Venice has no reality of its own. Anyone visiting the place has already seen so many pictures of it that they can only attempt to view it via these clichés, and they take home photographs of Venice that are similar to the ones they already knew. Venice [is] becoming like one of those painted backdrops that photographers use in their studio.
