Eugène Atget and Documentary Photography of the City

Bibliographic Data

ID2353035
AuthorsVladimir Rizov (0000-0002-4157-7207, University of Southampton, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume38
Issue3
Pages141-163
Publication date2021-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheory Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-2764 • E-ISSN: 1460-3616
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0263276420942804
OpenAlexW3085750923
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited14

This paper focuses on the documentary photography of Eugène Atget in late 19th and early 20th-century Paris. I will begin by exploring Atget's position as a pioneering documentary photographer in the field, followed by an engagement with the urban environment of Paris, in which Atget worked almost exclusively. Finally, I will analyse a single photograph in depth while discussing it in relation to the work of Charles Baudelaire and Jacques Rancière. This text is a contribution to a literature of critical engagement with documentary photography, urban history and the politics of class visibility. I will do so by arguing for the political significance of reading Atget's images in a critical, political manner that engages with Rancière's concept of the 'anonymous multiple'. Atget is considered a key documentary photographer, and, as such, he is exemplary of the history of documentary photography and its treatment of its subjects

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Documentary evidence · Field (mathematics · Geography · Key (lock · Photography · Political science · Politics · Reading (process · Relation (database · Sociology · Visibility · Visual arts · Computer Science · History · Law · Photographic and Visual Arts · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory

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