Impure vision : American staged art photography of the 1970s

Abstract: The aim of this study is to explore how American staged art photographers in the 1970s problematized a traditional, visualist approach to the photograph as mediator or interface between human subject and reality, which had been present in the straight photography that had dominated American art photography from the early decades of the twentieth century. Instead of viewing the camera as an objective, optical device and photographs as mechanically reproducible artistic products, the proponents of the new "staged photography" seized the possibilities of conveying holistic life experiences by employing a full range of sensory impressions. American staged art photography of the 1970s is researched using the statements and artworks of four photographers: Les Krims, Duane Michals, Lucas Samaras, and Arthur Tress. The four photograhers' works and statements are analyzed against a theoretical backdrop constructed from phenomenology and postphenomenology, and their approach to photography is found to be phenomenologically influenced. The analysis shows both how traditionalist visualist approaches to camera and photography as mediator between human subject and reality was criticized as reductionist, and how the studied photographers of the 1970s tried to transcend the limitations of the purely visual effect of photography through making artworks where the haptic is reintroduced to the concept of visuality.