bringing their practice even closer to the synthetic
fabrication strategies of painters.
In general, recent photography and painting are
both diverse, and no single relationship between
photography and painting exists. For many artists,
distinctions among media have become irrelevant
or at least highly blurred. Certainly photographic
ideas have fully entered the vocabulary available to
other visual media, and vice versa. Developments
in photography cannot be understood without con-
sidering parallel developments in painting; likewise
painting must be seen against the backdrop of a
world that is increasingly filtered through lens-
based representations. And both painting and
photography are engaged in a dialogue with new
digital image technologies as the twenty-first cen-
tury unfolds.
JeanRobertsonSeealso:Abstraction; Adams, Ansel; Bauhaus; Con-
ceptual Photography; Cunningham, Imogen; Dada;
Gilpin, Laura; Gursky, Andreas; Ka ̈sebier, Gertrude;
Linked Ring; Moholy-Nagy, La ́szlo ́; Montage; New-
hall, Beaumont; Outerbridge Jr., Paul; Pictorialism;
Postmodernism; Rauschenberg, Robert; Siskind,
Aaron; Solarization; Steichen, Edward; Stieglitz,
Alfred; Strand, Paul; Struth, Thomas; Surrealism;
Szarkowski, John; Uelsmann, Jerry; Weston,
Edward; White, Clarence; White, MinorFurther Reading
After Art: Rethinking 150 Years of Photography. Essays by
Chris Bruce and Andy Grundberg. Seattle: Henry Art
Gallery, University of Washington, 1984.
Benjamin, Walter. ‘‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechan-
ical Reproduction.’’ InIlluminations, ed. Hannah Arendt,
trans. Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken, 1968, 217–251.
Campany, David, ed.Art and Photography. London and New
York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2003.
Coke, Van Deren.The Painter and the Photograph: From
Delacroix to Warhol. New Mexico: University of New
Mexico Press, 1972.
Fogle, Douglas, ed.The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photo-
graphy 1960–1982. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2003.
Galassi, Peter.Before Photography. New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 1981.
Grundberg, Andy, and Kathleen McCarthy Gauss.Photo-
graphy and Art: Interactions Since 1946.NewYork:Abbe-
ville Press, 1987.
Image Scavengers: Photography. Essays by Paula Marincola
and Douglas Crimp. Philadelphia: Institute of Contem-
porary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1982.
Scharf, Aaron.Art and Photography. revised edition. Lon-
don: Allen Lane, Pelican Books, 1974.PHOTOGRAPHY AND SCULPTURE
Perhaps the most unlikely relationship between two
media is that of sculpture and photography, the
negotiation of form within a space seemingly at
odds with the faithful reproduction of the outside
world on a two-dimensional surface. However,
sculpture and photography have shared a rich his-
tory during the twentieth century resulting in works
that challenged the boundaries of expression in
both media. Given its inherent ability to record
events and situations, photography lent itself imme-
diately to the documentation of sculptural projects
in the first half of the century. For example, much
of the work of the Russian constructivists is known
not by the actual objects but through photographic
representation. This function of photography has
become the strongest link between the two media,
and one that has been explored increasingly by
numerous younger artists at the end of the century.
In the 1930s, La ́szlo ́Moholy-Nagy’s famous exam-
ple of his ‘‘Light-Modulators’’—sculptures made to
create specific lighting effects when photographed—
inspired many students of photography both in Eur-
ope and at the Institute of Design (New Bauhaus),
Chicago, to explore two and three-dimensional forms
and formats. In the 1930s as well the Surrealists
explored the idea ofsculptures involontairesor com-
mon materials presented as ‘‘accidental sculpture.’’
The French photographer Brassaı ̈ created a series
featuring ephemeral substances such as toothpaste
and soap known as ‘‘involuntary sculptures’’ in an
early example of what would become a common
practice among process and performance artists.PHOTOGRAPHY AND SCULPTURE