Allan Sekula Quotes

Documentary is thought to be art when it transcends its reference to the world, when the work can be regarded, first and foremost, as an act of self-expression on the part of the artist.

The making of a human likeness on film is a political act.

The photograph is an incomplete utterance, a message that depends on some external matrix of conditions and presuppositions for its readability.

The only objective truth that photographs offer is the assertion that somebody or something... was somewhere and took a picture.

Black-and-white photos tell the truth. That's why insurance companies use them.

Documentary photography has amassed mountains of evidence. And yet... the genre has simultaneously contributed much to spectacle, to retinal excitation, to voyeurism, to terror, envy and nostalgia, and only a little to the critical understanding of the social world.

How does photography serve to legitimate and normalize existing power relationships? ... How is historical and social memory preserved, transformed, restricted and obliterated by photographs?

Photography promises an enhanced mastery of nature, but photography also threatens conflagration and anarchy.