Abstract
Book Review
This book contains a collection of 10 scholarly essays that investigate early histories of portraiture and studio photography in China and Japan. The
essays derive from conference proceedings first delivered at the Facing Asia conference in 2010, at the National University in Canberra, Australia,
which examine the relationship between visual practices and cultural systems seen in early East Asian photography. In doing this, they consider how early Chinese and Japanese photography was more than just commerce; instead, the essays scrutinise how early photography contributes to gendered, national and public identities. The book adds to expanding research about the histories of
portraiture and early studio photography, that have traditionally sat outside of the western canon of photography. These histories first emerged as an area of interest in the early 1990s when the studio photography of Sedou Keita and Malik Sidbie were first exhibited in New York, and have since been written about in volumes such as Pinney (1997), Behdad and Luke (2013), Behrend (2013) and most recently Sheehi (2016).1 None of these examples, however, focus on East Asian photography. This volume raises the visibility of visual cultures in early
East Asian photography, in both Chinese and Japanese contexts.
This book contains a collection of 10 scholarly essays that investigate early histories of portraiture and studio photography in China and Japan. The
essays derive from conference proceedings first delivered at the Facing Asia conference in 2010, at the National University in Canberra, Australia,
which examine the relationship between visual practices and cultural systems seen in early East Asian photography. In doing this, they consider how early Chinese and Japanese photography was more than just commerce; instead, the essays scrutinise how early photography contributes to gendered, national and public identities. The book adds to expanding research about the histories of
portraiture and early studio photography, that have traditionally sat outside of the western canon of photography. These histories first emerged as an area of interest in the early 1990s when the studio photography of Sedou Keita and Malik Sidbie were first exhibited in New York, and have since been written about in volumes such as Pinney (1997), Behdad and Luke (2013), Behrend (2013) and most recently Sheehi (2016).1 None of these examples, however, focus on East Asian photography. This volume raises the visibility of visual cultures in early
East Asian photography, in both Chinese and Japanese contexts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | Visual Studies |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 11 Nov 2019 |