Elisabeth Tonnard

Like Bouvard and Pécuchet, those eternal copyists, both sublime and comical and whose profound absurdity precisely designates the truth of photography, the photographer can only imitate a gesture forever anterior, never original…

The Death of the Photographer. A Rehearsal presents an appropriated version of Andreas Schmidt’s book Neon Boneyard Las Vegas A-Z Judy Natal (2011) as well as a variation on Roland Barthes’ essay The Death of the Author. Schmidt’s book was appropriated from the website where the artist made his book available (www.blurb.com). Barthes’ essay, in the translation by Richard Howard, was downloaded from Ubuweb and edited in Microsoft Word. No efforts have been made to contact the rightful owners with regards to copyright and permissions.

Published in Leerdam, The Netherlands, November 2011. 96 pages, full-colour paperback. See some images of the book here.

This book is sold out.

The book is available in the collections of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Bodleian Library (special collections at the Weston Library), International Center for Photography,  Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature, Kunstbibliothek (Berlin), MACBA (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona), National Library of The Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek), Thomas J. Watson library at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (Munich).