Title: Words Without Pictures
Editors: Charlotte Cotton and Alex Klein
Publisher: Aperture, New York City
Graphic design: O-R-G inc., David Reinfurt
Format: 512 pages, 8 1/4 x 5 7/8 inches, paperback, English
ISBN: 978-1-5971-1142-3
Words Without Pictures was originally conceived of by curator Charlotte Cotton as a means of creating spaces for thoughtful and urgent discourse around current issues in photography. Every month for a year, beginning in November 2007, an artist, educator, critic, art historian, or curator was invited to contribute a short, un-illustrated, and opinionated essay about an aspect of photography that, in his or her view, was either emerging or in the process of being rephrased. Each piece was available on the Words Without Pictures-website for one month and was accompanied by a discussion forum focused on its specific topic. Over the course of its month-long life, each essay received both invited and unsolicited responses from a wide range of interested partiesstudents, photographers active in the commercial sector, bloggers, critics, historians, artists of all kinds, educators, publishers, and photography enthusiasts alikeall coming together to consider the issues at hand. All of these essays, responses, and other provocations are gathered together in a volume designed by David Reinfurt of Dexter Sinister.
With contributions by:
Walead Beshty, Paul Graham, Darius Himes, Kevin Moore, Penelope Umbrico, James Welling, George Baker, Sharon Lockhart, Shannon Ebner, Allen Ruppersberg, Allan McCollum, Carter Mull, Anthony Pearson, Mark Wyse, Sarah Charlesworth, Sze Tsung Leong, Harrell Fletcher, Leslie Hewitt, A.L. Steiner, Jason Evans, Charlie White, John Divola, Marisa Olson (Lost Not Found. The Circulation of Images in Digital Visual Culture), and many more