So present, so invisible : Conversations on photography

There is a lot of casual chat about photography, just
as there is a lot of casual photography. But there have
always been articulate voices, able to see past the obvious,
around the distracting, and through the trivial
to say something about the more profound aspects of
the medium. Many of those voices have belonged to
image makers.
The critic and exhibitions curator David Campany,
often invited by photographers and museums to
write about their practice during his career, talked
with world-class artists – Adam Broomberg and Oliver
Chanarin, Daniel Blaufuks, Robert Cumming,
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lewis Baltz, John Stezaker,
Paul Graham, Rut Blees Luxemburg, Jeff Wall, Lucas
Blalock, Susan Meiselas, Victor Burgin, William
Klein, Stephen Shore – to interrogate them about
their past, the various creative phases they crossed
over, and above all their rapport with photographic
medium and reality. That is why these conversations
transcend the dimension of the simple interview to
reveal the close connection between art and author
photography, between photography and the world,
between thought and speech.
Because, as noted by the author in his introduction,
“whether long or short, nearly all these conversations
were open-ended. Neither party knew where
we might be going or where things would end up. For
me, that is always the real value of a conversation, as
opposed to an interview (or a questionnaire). There is
risk and excitement, a sense of mutual exploration
and speculation”.