Image Making: Essays on Visual Culture (1978-2018)

Long before social media created a surfeit of globally interconnected images, the art world opened its previously narrow confines to include the true diversity of image production. Image Making chronicles Shelley Rice’s skillful navigation of two pivotal moments in this transformation: the pluralism of New York in the 1970s and the global outreach of digital networks in the 2010s. As one of our era’s most incisive and inspired photography and multimedia critics, Rice’s insightful reviews and articles chronicle this seismic shift, offering a deeply resonant exploration of art’s intersection with society. Her critical engagement with renowned artists and curators such as Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Ana Mendieta, Francesca Woodman, Lorraine O’Grady, Duane Michals, Gerhard Richter, Okwui Enwezor, Walid Raad, and Cindy Sherman sets a standard for understanding contemporary art and the vital role a seminal critic plays in shaping our visual culture. Image Making is indispensable reading for anyone interested in contemporary art, the role of criticism, and the deep interdependence of images and social, cultural, and political forces.

Shelley Rice is a renowned art critic and historian who has lectured on visual media worldwide. She is the author of Parisian Views and the editor of Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman; co-author of The Book of 101 Books, Paris et le Daguerreotype, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Vik Muniz: Incomplete Works, Candida Höfer: In Portugal, Marc Ferrez: Rio, and Unbranded: A Century of White Women by Hank Willis Thomas. Her writings have appeared in Artforum, Art in America, Art Journal, The New Republic, The Village Voice, Tate Papers, Bookforum, and Aperture, among others. She has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hasselblad Center grant, National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities awards, Senior Fulbrights to France and Turkey, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency, and the PEN/Jerard Award for Non-Fiction Essay. In 2010 she was named Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture. She teaches at New York University.