Thomas Bernhard and photography. Around Extinction and not only Cover Image

Thomas Bernhard i fotografia. Wokół Wymazywania i nie tylko
Thomas Bernhard and photography. Around Extinction and not only

Author(s): Piotr Zawojski
Subject(s): Photography, Visual Arts, Austrian Literature, Sociology of Art
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Thomas Bernhard; photography; Extinction; picture;

Summary/Abstract: Thomas Bernhard was not an expert in photography, its history and especially theory. He never dealt with the discursive description of her phenomenon. However, in his last great novel, Extinction (1986), he made several photos a kind of memory trigger and a center for building a story. The article deals with the issue of a special, extremely critical, not to say iconoclastic, assessment of the role of photography as a medium of stupefying people who succumb to its seductive power. The analysis of the fragments of photography appearing in the novel is just a starting point for deeper reflection on the impossibility of erasing photography as a medium of memory, it is a fundamental polemic with the thesis of the novel narrator, which the author identifies with the author himself. Here, Thomas Bernhard’s Extinction is an excuse to reflect on how photography and photographing can be considered a disease of our time, as the Austrian writer anticipated in his novel in the eighties of the last century.

  • Issue Year: 43/2020
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 122-132
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: Polish