From Library Journal
Adding to an expanding bibliography on "photo-based" artwork, this volume showcases a corporate art collection assembled with a keen eye and thoughtful intelligence. However, those seeking a better understanding of the photography illustrated here may find this book frustrating; this current within the art world still awaits a really comprehensive survey that combines historical perspective and critical analysis with fine illustrations. Still, readers will be introduced to many unfamiliar names among these full-color plates one of the genuine excitements here is that so many of the works are recent, often produced within the last three years. More familiar artists, such as Cindy Sherman, Robert Rauschenberg, and Matthew Barney, are also featured. Curator and art critic Kertess's opening 25-page essay offers tantalizingly brief descriptions of the concerns and work processes of the artists; only the first portion really addresses how photography dramatically expanded beyond the single print to encompass computer-based work, film/video stills, and seriality and to merge with sculpture, painting, and drawing. Recommended for larger art collections. Michael Dashkin, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, New York Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
Over the past 30 years, photography has revolutionized the traditional fine arts, and no collection better documents this dramatic transformation than that of the Metropolitan Bank & Trust. Featuring conceptual photographic works by almost 200 artists, ranging from Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg to Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andreas Gursky, and Matthew Barney, the collection is the most comprehensive of its kind, public or private, in the world. Through more than 500 full-color reproductions and a groundbreaking analysis by critic Klaus Kertess, Photography Transformed surveys this outstanding assemblage. Exploring subjects such as the influence of 1960s conceptual art on contemporary photography and the impact of video and film on still imagery, it places the works in historical context. Much more than a mere overview, this ambitious, insightful volume seeks to illustrate how and why the medium of photography has claimed modern art's center stage.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
A pioneering documentary of photography's transition from its position during the 1960s at the periphery of the art world to one of today's most acclaimed forms of self-expression, Transformed Photography represents the vast and unusual works of art from the acclaimed Metropolitan Bank & Trust Collection. This catalogue depicts more than 200 artists' works, from Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg to Nan Goldin and Andreas Gursky, through the display of more than 300 beautiful color-plate reproductions. One of the foremost contemporary art critics, Klaus Kertess, places the images in context with the entire movement to establish photography as a widely accepted art form through a sophisticated and in-depth introduction that traces the varied photographic tributaries flowing from the works and theories of photography's founders.

Starting with such conceptual artists as Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg and such photographers as Walker Evans and Bernd and Hilla Becher, Kertess traces the slowly vanishing boundaries between documentation and art (both high and low) and explains the impact of mass media and consumerism on an art form that lends itself to repetition and seriality. As Kertess explains, photography is driven by rather Nabokovian questions of perception and perspective "where the conundrum of illusion slowly turns into an illusion of conundrum."

Moving on to the inheritors of these techniques and theories, Kertess introduces a number of key artists whose works are displayed in this book. Kertess highlights the unique aspects of the works and then places them in the framework of significant themes of this period: staged vs. straight photography, the camera as witness, and the position of "I" in the artist's works.

Kertess's essay does justice to the vast and layered works of art that fill the pages of this book, proving that photography is in fact at the center stage of the art world today. Ranging from the eerie and profound works of Islamic photographer Shirin Neshat to the playful, tongue-in-cheek works of Sherrie Levine, the breadth of these individual pieces of art astound, disquiet, and sometimes shock the reader. This beautiful book is bound to please both the art aficionado and the casual reader who leafs through it on your coffee table. (Kristen Dahlmann)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Over the past 30 years, photography has revolutionized the traditional fine arts, and no collection better documents this dramatic transformation than that of the Metropolitan Bank & Trust. Featuring conceptual photographic works by almost 200 artists, ranging from Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg to Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andreas Gursky, and Matthew Barney, the collection is the most comprehensive of its kind, public or private, in the world.

Through more than 500 full-color reproductions and a groundbreaking analysis by critic Klaus Kertess, Photography Transformed surveys this oustanding assemblage. Exploring subjects such as the influence of 1960s conceptual art on contemporary photography and the impact of video and film on still imagery, it places the works in historical context. Much more than a mere overview, this ambitious, insightful volume seeks to illustrate how and why the medium of photography has claimed modern art's center stage.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal