Allan Sekula (1951–2013)

Catalog of a photographic exhibition held at Witte de With, center for contemporary art, Rotterdam, January 21-December 3, 1995; Fotografiska Museet in Moderna Museet, Stockholm, May 6-August 27, 1995; Tramway, Glasgow, October 6-November 12, 1995; and Le Channel, Scene nationale and Musee des beaux arts et de la dentelle, Calais, December 16, 1995-February 25, 1996. Includes Benjamin H. D. Buchloh's "Allan Sekula: photography between discourse and document" (p. 189-200). Completed between 1989 and 1995, Fish Story allowed Allan Sekula to pursue throughout his career a contemporary "critical realism" to reach its most complex articulation. Fish Story reconstructed a realistic model of photographic representation, while taking a critical stance towards traditional documentary photography. It also marked the first sustained exploration of the ocean by Sekula as a key space for globalization. A key issue in Fish Story is the link between the transport of containerized cargo and the increasing internationalization of the global industrial economy, with its effects on the real social space of ports. The ambition of Fish Story lies both in its immense complexity and global reach, and in its energetic challenge to the prevailing climate of postmodern theory and practice of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fish Story occupies a central place in a gradual change, still nascent in the early 1990s, from a widespread culture of resignation and cynicism to a culture of renewed radical engagement in the art world… (mehr)