Documentary has undergone a marked revival in recent art, following a long period in which it was a denigrated and unfashionable practice. This has in part been led by the exhibition of photographic and video work on political issues at 'Documenta' and numerous biennials and, since the turn of the century, issues of injustice, violence and trauma in increasing zones of conflict. Aesthetically, documentary is now one of the most prominent modes of art-making, in part assisted by the linked transformation and recuperation of photography and video by the gallery and museum world. Unsurprisingly, this development, along with the close attention paid to photojournalism and mainstream documentary-making in a time of crisis, has been accompanied by a rich strain of theoretical and historical writing on documentary.
Artists surveyed include: Kutlug Ataman, Ursula Biemann, Hasan Elahi, Harun Farocki, Omer Fast, Joan Fontcuberta, Regina José Galindo, David Goldblatt, Craigie Horsfield, Alfredo Jaar, Emily Jacir, Lisa F. Jackson, Philip Jones Griffiths, An-My Le, Renzo Martens, Boris Mikhailov, Daido Moriyama, Walid Raad, Michael Schmidt, Sean Snyder. Writers include: James Agee, Ariella Azoulay, Walter Benjamin, Adam Broomberg, Judith Butler, Oliver Chanarin, Georges Didi-Huberman, John Grierson, David Levi Strauss, Elizabeth McCausland, Carl Plantinga, Jacques Rancière, Martha Rosler, Jean-Paul Sartre, Allan Sekula, W. Eugene Smith, Susan Sontag, Hito Steyerl, Trinh T. Minh-ha.--Publisher's website.
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