Politics unseen: Group f.64 photography and the problem of purity

Abstract

"In Politics Unseen, Ellen Macfarlane radically reframes the "pure photographs" of California art photography society Group f.64, known for depicting Western landscapes, fruits and vegetables, flowers, and faces. By foregrounding f.64 members' and their prints' alliances across commercial, political, and artistic domains, the book shatters entrenched understandings of the group as disinterested in contemporary events and unseats conceptions of its prints as icons of modernist purity. Instead, Politics Unseen argues the politics of f.64's photographs become visible when interwar ideas about "purity" in the areas of eugenics, racial essence, nutrition, colonialism, and horticulture are interrogated. Ultimately, Politics Unseen alters perceptions not only of f.64, but also of what constituted a political image in 1930s America"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Group f.64 and the limits of political photography -- "The pure Negroid types I prefer" : Consuelo Kanaga's portraits of black Americans -- The politics of Edward Weston's "pure food" photography: Fruits and vegetables in the depression -- Imogen Cunningham's botanical photographs : American horticulture and the colonial purification of plants.