A roster of prominent artists, curators, and scholars offers a new, entirely contemporary approach to our understanding of photography and media

Focusing on the Art Institute of Chicago’s deep and varied collection of photographs, books and other printed matter, installation art, photobooks, albums, and time-based media, this ambitious, wide-ranging volume features short essays by prominent artists, curators, university professors, and independent scholars that explore topics essential to understanding photography and media today. The essays, organized around themes ranging from the expected to the esoteric, are paired with key objects from the collection in order to address issues of aesthetics, history, philosophy, power relations, production, and reception. More than 400 high-quality reproductions amplify the authors’ arguments and suggest additional dialogues across conventional divisions of chronology, genre, geography, and technology. An introductory essay by Matthew S. Witkovsky traces the museum’s history of acquisitions and how the evolution of the museum’s collection reflects broader changes in the critical reception of the field of photography and media.

Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago

Contributions by: Carl Fuldner, Katie Palmer Albers, Leticia Alvarado, Carol Armstrong, Rebecca Arnold, Nadya Bair, George Baker, Geoffrey Batchen, Jordan Bear, Ali Behdad, Walead Beshty, Dawoud Bey, Emilie Boone, Marta Braun, Monica Bravo, Antawan I Byrd, Zahid Chaudhary, Anne Anlin Chang, Tacita Dean, Liz Deschenes, Grace Deveney, Georges Didi-Huberman, Elizabeth Edwards, Steve Edwards, Noam M. Elcott, Hannah Feldman, Hito Steyerl, Duncan Forbes, Devin Fore, Tamar Garb, Thierry Gervais, Mark Godfrey, David Hartt, Patricia Hayes, Marvin Heiferman, Johnathan Katz, Robin Kelsey, Sabine T. Kriebel, Lauren Kroiz, Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Susan Laxton, Leigh Ledare, Anthony W. Lee, Michael Leja, Olivier Lugon, Ingrid Masondo, Jordana Mendelson, Paul Messier, Wardell Milan, Noah Wertheimer, Sarah M Miller, Rabih Mroue, Solveig Nelson, Oluremi C Onabanjo, Sylvie Penichon, Christopher Phillips, Thy Phu, Chitra Ramalingam, Michal Raz-Russo, Martha Rosler, Vikramaditya Sahai, Vanessa R Schwartz, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Roberto Tejada, Drew Thompson, Reiko Tomii, Jennifer Tucker, Jeff Wall, Brian Wallis, Laura Wexler, Mechtild Widrich, Amanda Williams, Christopher Williams, Leslie M Wilson, Andres Zervigon, Claire Zimmerman
Introduction by: Matthew S. Witkovsky
Foreword by: James Rondeau