The Critical Eye

"I love how curious and sensitive these readings of pictures are, bringing me into the photographer's mind. I felt I was seeing some images (that I know well) for the first time. The writing is totally visual, stimulated, and stimulating, whether it is dealing with Julianne Nash in 2017, or a daguerreotypist in 1839. Even when Rexer is telling me something I already know historically, it feels like being there, and I am getting to know it in a new way."

"Rexer's timely investigation in the shifting universe of photography underpins a number of arguments to which I subscribe wholeheartedly: that images need more 'active viewers'; that photography itself is no longer a medium but rather 'a Swiss Army knife,' i.e., a single approach and tool with many, and very diverse, applications; and that photographic practices can no longer be neatly separated into art, commercial, vernacular, or scientific domains. For this reason, the book is required reading for anyone who wants to grasp the changed--and still changing--territory of image making, especially in arts and cultural production. Through a laser-focused analysis of fifteen 'hub' photographs, Rexer can tell us as much as fifteen books' worth on how to make sense of contemporary photography: how it is no longer a means to an end, but a form of 'visually performing' our lives."