Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before

By Michael Fried (Yale University Press, 409 pp., $55)

I.

Michael Fried,who shot to intellectual stardom in 1967 with an essay in Artforum called "Art and Objecthood," is an intimidating writer. He looks very closely. He has passionate feelings about what he sees. And he shapes his impressions into a theory that fits snugly with all the other theories he has ever had. Whatever his chosen subject--Diderot, Courbet, Manet, Kenneth Noland--he comes up with an interpretation that is as smoothly and tightly constructed as a stainless-steel box. His writing amounts to a set of matching stainless-steel boxes. He puts potential critics on notice that the best they can hope to do is leave a few fingerprints or scratches on these perfectly polished surfaces. And so many people back away. Fried wants us to feel that we could as easily demolish the Great Pyramid of Giza with a pick-axe as successfully question his interpretations of his chosen themes--which now include the art of the camera, in his new book, Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before. This is Fried's first extended foray into photography, and although it was a subject of discussion in academic circles even before it appeared, it has not received the more general attention that it deserves. Fried brings audacious arguments to old controversies about the relationship between art and photography. I find the arguments troubling, even wrongheaded, but only a man with a bold, wide-ranging, and fearless mind could have dreamed such stuff up.

I

Excuse me for noticing, but haven't we been commemorating Columbus's quincentennial in the wrong year? I know that dates and math aren't America's strong suit right now, but it doesn't take advanced calculus to figure that 1492 plus 500 equals 1992.