What is Abstraction in Photography?. (13th October 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Costello, Diarmuid
• Is Part Of: British journal of aesthetics. Volume 58:Number 4(2018)
• Page Start: 385
• Page End: 400
• Publication Date: 2018-10-13
• Subjects: Aesthetics -- Periodicals; 111.85
• DOI: 10.1093/aesthj/ayy037
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0007-0904

Abstract

Abstract: There is confusion about what counts as abstraction in photography: art theorists class very different kinds of photographs as abstract, and common philosophical views of photography, if true, should cause us to doubt their very possibility. I address two questions here: 'What is Abstraction?' and 'What is Abstraction in Photography?' To the answer the second, I briefly consider a third: 'What is Photography?' so that the resulting account is not undermined by a poor theory of photography. In answer to my target question, I outline a schematic (and non-exhaustive) typology of kinds of work generically typed as 'abstract' in order to bring out some differences between them. I distinguish 'proto', 'faux', 'constructed faux', 'weak', 'strong', 'constructed' and 'concrete' abstraction, although the differences between them are not always clear-cut and there is room for debate about borderline cases. My goal is not to resolve all such cases, but to show: (i) that there is a range of broadly identifiable kinds of abstraction in photography; (ii) that images can be abstract in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons; and (iii) why certain images are not abstract, despite being widely typed as such.