Collapsing Hierarchies: Photography and Contemporary Art

A short survey of artists' use of photography, including
Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, Sol LeWitt, Hockney and Warhol.
Describing drawing as ""aristocratic'' and photography as
""middle-class'', the author states: ""The fact that drawing and
photography can be induced to exchange roles offers a
particularly important instance of give and take, for it teaches
us much about the economy of the aesthetic in modern times. The
first lesson is the most important: precisely because the
esthetic is economic, a pattern of exchange, the meanings of
artworks and even the definitions of mediums are utterly
contigent. Nothing can be known in advance. One must elicit
meaning from immediacies, like an artist who has taken a picture
and is now waiting for the image to emerge.''