Martha Rosler Quotes

• Photography [can] be seen as a system of representation that you bring to bear on other systems.

  Martha Rosler

  Photography, Bears, Representation

  17 Copy quote

• I was concerned with something like the notion of 'language speaking the subject,' and with the transformation of the woman herself into a sign in a system of signs that represent a system of food production, a system of harnessed subjectivity.

  Martha Rosler

  Subjectivity, Transformation, Language

  19 Copy quote

• Any familiarity with photographic history shows that manipulation is integral to photography.

  Martha Rosler

  Photography, Manipulation, Shows

  Martha Rosler (2004). “Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975-2001”, p.262, MIT Press

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• So much of my work involved the Vietnam War that it would have been obscene to show it in a gallery. But now, it’s different; it’s important to remember and to enable the young to discover what to some of us is still so present.

  Martha Rosler

  War, Important, Different

  18 Copy quote

• Documentary is a little like horror movies, putting a face on fear and transforming threat into fantasy, into imagery. One can handle imagery by leaving it behind. (It is them, not us.)

  Martha Rosler

  Leaving, Littles, Faces

  Martha Rosler (2004). “Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975-2001”, p.179, MIT Press

  12 Copy quote

• How useful are documentary photographs if there is no follow up, no way of knowing what happened next in the story?

  Martha Rosler

  Knowing, Stories, Way

  6 Copy quote

• Take the Money and Run? Can Political and Socio-Critical Art ‘Survive’?

  Martha Rosler

  Running, Art, Political

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• The question at hand is the danger posed to truth by computer-manipulated photographic imagery. How do we approach this question in a period in which the veracity of even the straight, unmanipulated photograph has been under attack for a couple of decades.

  Martha Rosler

  Couple, Hands, Computer

  12 Copy quote

• The exposé, the compassion and outrage, of documentary fueled by the dedication to reform has shaded over into combinations of exoticism, tourism, voyeurism, psychologism and metaphysics, trophy hunting - and careerism.

  Martha Rosler

  Compassion, Dedication, Hunting

  Martha Rosler (2004). “Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975-2001”, p.178, MIT Press

  12 Copy quote

• Are we asserting the easy dominion of our civilization over all times and all places, as signs that we casually absorb as a form of loot?

  Martha Rosler

  Civilization, Dominion, Easy

  Martha Rosler (2004). “Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975-2001”, p.270, MIT Press

  6 Copy quote

• Just going out on a foray to assemble a collection of street trophies about this or that running social sore can't be effective - and never was.

  Martha Rosler

  Running, Going Out, Trophies

  8 Copy quote

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