the traditional assumption that the medium is an
empty conveyer of pure, unaltered reality. In fact,
because of the photographer’s lack of absolute con-
trol and domination over the final product—what
develops into the photograph often produces unin-
tended effects, in subject and in interpretation—
photography is extremely important to gaining an
understanding of postmodern elements, including
discourses of domination, ownership, authorship,
representation, and chance (Jameson 1991, 214).
NabeelaSheikhSeealso:Deconstruction; Discursive Spaces; Feminist
Photography; Image Theory: Ideology; Kruger, Bar-
bara; Photographic ‘‘Truth’’; Social Representation;
Sherman, Cindy
Further Reading
Adam, Ian, and Helen Tiffin, eds.Past the Last Post:
Theorizing Post-Colonialism and Post-Modernism. New
York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.
Appignanesi, Richard, and Chris Garratt.Introducing Post-
modernism. New York: Totem Books, 1995.
Baudrillard, Jean.Simulations. Translated by Paul Foss,
Paul Patton, and Philip Beitchman. New York: Semio-
text[e], 1983.
Connor, Steven.Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to
Theories of the Contemporary. Second edition. Cam-
bridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1997.
Docherty, Thomas, ed.Postmodernism: A Reader. New
York: Harvester, 1993.
Foucault, Michel.The Order of Things: An Archaeology of
the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon, 1970.
Habermas, Jurgen. ‘‘Modernity—an Incomplete Project.’’
The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. Edi-
ted by Hal Foster. Seattle: Bay Press, 1983.
Hassan, Ihab.The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern The-
ory and Culture. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1987.
Hutcheon, Linda.The Politics of Postmodernism. London
and New York: Routledge, 1989.
Huyssen, Andreas.After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass
Culture and Postmodernism. London: Macmillan, 1986.
Jameson, Fredric.Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991.
Lyotard, Jean-Franc ̧ ois.La Condition postmoderne: rapport
sur le savoir. Paris: Les Editions de minuit: 1979; asThe
Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.Theory
and History of Literature 10, translated by Geoff Ben-
nington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press, 1984.RICHARD PRINCE
American
Richard Prince’s photographs are documentations
of the widely available, shared subject matter of
mass-circulated, printed images. He is an important
figure among both appropriation and conceptual
photography movements of the mid- to late-1970s
in the United States. His re-presentations of popular,
frequently recognizable photographs have provoked
a re-consideration of authorship and photography.
Prince has pinpointed his interest in art as
beginning with the famousLifemagazine spread
of Hans Namuth’s photographs of Abstract
Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock. It was
more the lifestyle of the artist, with its emphasis
on individuality and freedom that appealed to him
than the idea of working in any specific medium.
He began his career using photography in the
early 1970s. After college in Maine, he moved to
New York and was employed in the clipping ser-
vice or ‘‘tear sheet’’ department of Time-Life pub-
lications. The job gave him access to thousands of
printed images, which he re-photographed in a
makeshift studio he surreptitiously had set up in
the basement of the Time-Life building, and pre-
sented as new artwork. He slightly altered the
cropping, lighting, and angle of the originals,
escaping accusations of illegal reproduction and
hinting at the seduction and stereotypes of mass
media. As a result, he created works that are
copies and yet that can simultaneously exist inde-
pendently as unique photographs.
During the1970s, Prince used found images to
create collages, which as an art form relies primarily
on the device of juxtaposition. In an early foray into
what would become his signature style, Prince took
four pictures of commercial photographs of living
rooms fromThe New York Times Magazineand
presented them in a uniform line. The re-presenta-
tion,(Untitled) Living Rooms, 1977, prompts thePOSTMODERNISM