National Endowment for the Arts came under
close scrutiny by the political right garnered wide
attention. Under editors like Martha Gever, Cath-
erine Lord, and David Trend,Afterimagefocused
on such political and topical issues as AIDS, repro-
ductive rights, racial identity, political organizing,
queer theory, sexual difference, patronage in the
form of institutional support, audience reception
and deconstructing the art world and art and
photographic practice. Afterimage allowed new,
formerly marginalized voices to be heard, and its
authors engaged in contemporary debates about
new scholarship, canons and practices. In the
1980sAfterimagepublished such important essays
as Jan Zita Grover’s ‘‘Visible Lesions: Images of
PWAs’’ (Vol. 17, summer 1989); Coco Fusco’s
‘‘Fantasies of Oppositionality’’ (Vol.16, December
1988) and Lorraine O’Grady’s ‘‘Olympia’s Maid:
Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity’’ (Vol. 20,
summer 1992).
In its early days,Afterimageadopted two meth-
odological approaches in order to question photo-
graphy’s aesthetics and to criticize institutional
ways of understanding photography. Articles in
the journal argued against the then standard
mode of viewing art photography as separate
from the daily uses of photography; essentially to
argue for an inclusion ofalltypes of photography
in its study and history. The other, interrelated
approach was to cross over the boundaries between
critic, curator, and artist, creating new personas
that incorporated some or all of these aspects,
exemplified in Lyons, the founder, who took
photographs as well as edited, wrote and curated.
A strong interest in vernacular photography and
the hope of creating an interdisciplinary field that
would embrace popular and visual culture also
motivated the early issues ofAfterimageand con-
tinue to inform its ideology today.
Physically,Afterimagedoes not look much dif-
ferent than it did thirty years ago, and its articles
remain focused on topical political, theoretical, and
social issues, as its subtitle suggests. Current issues
are slightly larger and include four more pages than
in the past. Currently edited by the French photo-
grapher and writer Bruno Chalifour,Afterimage
devotes 24 pages to photography, video, film, digi-
tal media, and art, encompassing issues of craft,
methodology, and social criticism alike. The bi-
monthly journal also includes exhibition and
book reviews, a national list of exhibitions includ-
ing some international venues, a list of internships
and grants, editorials and letters to the editor, and
usually contains an artist’s portfolio of images.
Afterimageis published internationally and keeps
a rotating staff of freelance writers.
ALLISONMooreSeealso:Barthes, Roland; Burgin, Victor; Krauss,
Rosalind; Lyons, Nathan; Photographic Theory; Post-
modernism; Sekula, Alan; Solomon-Godeau, AbigailFurther Reading
Afterimage: The Journal of Media Art and Cultural Criticism
published by the Visual Studies Workshop, 31 Prince
Street, Rochester NY (1969–present).
Kester, Grant H. ed.Art, Activism and Oppositionality:
Essays from Afterimage. Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 1998.AGITPROP
The term ‘‘agitprop’’ fuses the first syllables of
the two words agitation and propaganda. During
the 1920s and 1930s in particular, this term was
applied to a brand of Central European Left-wing
cultural practice (theater, literature, painting, pho-
tography) that sought to propagate Marxist-Leni-
nist ideology at the same time that it aimed to
agitate its viewers toward political action. Thus,
agitprop was a socially-oriented art form whose
aim was simultaneously to re-educate and politi-
cally stimulate. The use of the term signified differ-
ently depending on the political circumstances in
which it was employed. In 1920s Germany, for
instance, agitprop cultural practice intended to gal-AGITPROP