Photography in Fragments

Why is it that photography, more than any other medium, attracts some of the worst writing about art? There are shelves of books on painting, sculpture, performance, and prints that are unafraid to discuss specific artists, movements, or artworks without constant anxious recourse to the status of the medium, and yet with photography, it’s as if there’s something inherent in the technology, a kind of spell, that compels critics to follow a formula. Not many books about photography mak