ABSTRACT
The collection of essays dares us to confront the specter of failure, and with it, of course, the radiant possibility of its other: the joy of success. In the case of John Berger and T. J. Clark, failure is measured in explicitly political terms and in terms dear to the historian concerned, rather than to the artist being discussed. Todd Cronan’s tells us that an “unmistakable sense of artistic—and indeed, human—failure haunts the last twenty-five years of his Rodchenko’s practice.” Photography’s greatest strength—its presumed truthfulness—is also frequently its greatest weakness, most particularly when its failure to be true is made visible. Failure is a melancholic prospect to behold and this would seem to suit Josef Sudek’s Sad Landscapes, a book of panoramic photographs compiled in 1965 but not published until 1994. The need to think carefully about what constitutes failure and what accords with success, for photographs and photographers, but also for those historians who want to talk about them.
