Learning objectives
The aim of the course is the acquisition, by the students, of elements useful for placing photographic images in a historical and synchronic context, both in a critical and analytical perspective, and in the perspective of a conscious and planning practice
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
Course Title:
The narration of Photography
Course program:
Some key episodes in the history of photography will be addressed in the context of the culture of images, with particular reference to its narrative effects, to their function in the communication system. Starting from the nineteenth-century origins, linked to the cultures of sight and realism, the change of the function of photography in the press, in the system of the arts, with a particular focus to the historical avant-gardes, will be crossed.
We will address the developments in the use of photography as a document with particular attention to the developments, in the 1930s, of Roosevelt's New Deal social photography and to the contemporary politics of images in Italy, during fascism, with specific analyzes on the major photojournalistic agencies, on editorial initiatives with a particular impact of the second postwar period.
We will continue with a reflection on the communication landscape of the "affluent society", the critical reflection on mass communications that invests the advertising image, fashion photography, news photography, up to the new landscape photography of the Eighties and Nineties, a new paradigm of the perception of the territory.
At the same time, theoretical positions will be examined which have arisen from the practice and diffusion of this language or which have had an impact on the practice of narrators for images. The course will be parallel to the workshop course; it will include image analysis exercises and meetings with authors.
Full programme
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Bibliography
General Texts:
Beaumont Newhall, Storia della fotografia, Einaudi, Torino 1997 (1972)
Antonella Russo, Storia culturale della fotografia. Dal neorealismo al postmoderno; Einaudi, Torino 2011
Gabriele d’Autilia, Storia della fotografia in Italia. Dal 1839 ad oggi, Einaudi, Torino 2012
Theoretical texts:
Walter Benjamin, L’opera d’arte nell’ epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica (diverse edizioni, consigliata Bompiani 2017)
Laszlo Moholy Nagy, Pittura Fotografia Film, Einaudi, Torino 2010
M. Consolini, G. Marrone (a c.di), Roland Barthes. L’immagine, il visibile, Marcos Y Marcos 2010
Roland Barthes, La camera chiara, Einaudi, Torino 1982
Susan Sontag, Sulla fotografia, Einaudi, Torino 2004
Giulio Bizzarri, Paolo Barbaro (a c.di), Luigi Ghirri. Vera fotografia, Quodlibet, Macerata 2011
Cristina Casero, Elena di Raddo (a c.di) Anni Settanta. La rivoluzione nei linguaggi dell’ arte, Postmedia Books, Milano 2015
David Lévi Strauss, Politica della fotografia, Postmedia Books, 2004
For not attending the lessons:
Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, Messa a fuoco. Studi sulla fotografia, Feltrinelli, Milano 1994 (1980)
Teaching methods
The course will consist of lectures, exercises in the analysis of historical and contemporary images, meetings with authors and, if possible, visits to photographic archives.
Assessment methods and criteria
The exam will consist in the assessment of knowledge of the themes of a series of texts agreed with the teacher based on the path chosen by the student and in the demonstration of the ability to analyze photographs covered by the course.
Bibliography of the exam:
-A general text chosen from those indicated in the bibliography
-A text chosen from among the "theoretical" ones
-Analysis of an image among those presented during the course
This last part, especially for those who have not followed the lessons, can be replaced by the acquaintance of Quintavalle 1980
Other information
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