Cotton Chapter 3 Summary

Chapter 3 of Charlotte Cotton's The Photograph as Contemporary Art is titled "Deadpan," and describes photographs that lack both visual drama and hyperbole. These images make use of a style that is cool, detached, and sharp, and rely greatly on clarity and monumental size to have an impact on the viewer. The photographer's perspective and emotion are markedly absent within these images; instead, it is the subject that dominates, and its meaning extends beyond the frame of the photograph. Andreas Gursky has become the figurehead of contemporary deadpan photography; his works are usually large-scale, and many place a considerable distance between viewer and subject. Cotton considers photographers who use deadpan in order to depict images of industrial, architectural, and ecological sites, including Walter Niedermayr, Candida Hofer, and Jem Southam. The chapter ends by looking at artists who use the depersonalized deadpan style in portraiture. One artist that was highly influential in this area was Thomas Ruff, whose head-and-shoulders portraits offer extreme physical detail, but give away nothing of the character of their subjects.