Autophoto

Description

An exploration of photography's longstanding and generative relationship to the automobile. Since its invention, the automobile has reshaped our landscape, extended our geographic horizons and radically altered our conception of space and time, influencing the practice of photographers worldwide. This book shows how the car provided photographers with new subject matter and a new way of exploring the world. It brings together 500 works made by 100 historical and contemporary artists from around the world. Capturing formal qualities such as the geometric design of roadways or reflections in a rear-view mirror, these photographers invite us to look at the world of the automobile in a new way. Auto-Photo also includes other projects such as a series of car models that cast a fresh eye on the history of automobile design, created specifically for the Fondation Cartier show by French artist Alain Bublex, plus a comparative history of automobile design and photography, essays by scholars and quotes by participating artists. Featuring the works of both historical and contemporary figures such as Jacques- Henri Lartigue, Man Ray, Lee Friedlander and Jacqueline Hassink, the exhibition will show how photographers have continuously documented the impact of automobility on our landscape and lifestyle, and how in turn the automobile has reshaped the practice of photographers, providing them with a new subject, a new means of expression and a new way of seeing the world.

Nancy W. Barr is Curator of Photography Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit. Clement Cheroux is Chief Curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Simon Baker is a curator at Tate Modern. Xavier Barral is a French photography book publisher.

By the end of the 19th century, the camera and the car had helped pave the way for a new, more modern perspective - images by freezing time, from multiple perspectives, and automobiles by speeding things up--Susanna D'Aliesio "British Journal of Photography" Capturing the geometric design of roadways, the reflections in a rear-view mirror or our special relationship with this object of desire, these photographers invite us to look at the world of the automobile in a new way.--David Hurren "DriveTribe" Cars and cameras grew up together as siblings.... A comfortable comparison can be made with having a photo in focus and having a car in the correct gear.... A lot of that has to do with taking the machine in your hands seriously--much like taking the car that you're sitting in seriously.--Florence Walker "Petrolicious" Fasten your seatbelts...--De Bellaigue "Ad Magazine" The stunning car photographs that capture the 20th century.... not only tells the shifting story of society's attitudes towards motorcars, but also provides an overview of important developments within the century's photography itself.--Alastair Sooke "Financial Times" The Cartier, 'Autophoto' is long overdue. Ever since the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain hosted the incredible Hommage a Ferrari 30 years ago, we've been waiting for another one of its automotive photo exhibitions. But it's finally here and it looks incredible.-- "GQ" This is the catalogue from a nearly impossibly ambitious exhibition of international photography about people and cars. Big and heavy like a school textbook, the catalogue ends up hitting most of the marks, and is a massive, thoughtful, and even, somehow, modest encyclopedia of the genre.-- "Center for Land Use Interpretation" This new presentation revisits photography's relationship to the automobile; how the car provided photographers with a new subject, a new point of view and new way of exploring the world... how the automobile has reshaped our landscape, extended our geographic horizons and altered our, and notably artists', concept of space and time.-- "Aesthetica Magazine" What may be the most ambitious exhibit of car-focused photography ever ... flat-out beautiful images.--Bill Shapiro "Popular Mechanics" Works range from an Eve Arnold's iconic 1961 images of Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits... to the work of photographers who have made the subject matter their own, like William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, and Robert Frank. [T]he diversity of images included is a testament to the ingenuity of photography and the various permutations that it can achieve.... many subtle threads that can be picked up on, giving plenty to satisfy the curious and knowledgeable.... One of these threads is changing the collective cultural memory of the car.--Sarah Hyde "Artnet" [Autophoto] makes it easy to understand why photographers' romance with the car may be as strong as ever.--Eric Nagourney "The New York Times: Lens Blog"