How photography became contemporary art

Grundberg reflects on the landmark exhibitions that defined the moment and his encounters with the work of leading photographers – many of whom he knew personally – including Gordon Matta-Clark, Cindy Sherman, and Robert Mapplethorpe. He navigates crucial themes such as photography’s relationship to theory as well as feminism and artists of colour. Part memoir and part history, this perspective by one of the period’s leading critics ultimately tells a larger story about the crucial decades of the 70s and 80s through the medium of photography.