Re-photography as critical strategy in recent art : an examination of the functional and theoretical underpinnings of re-photography as it has been employed in a critique of representation

Re-photography describes a set of contemporary art practices which involve the mechanical reproduction and re-presentation of photographic imagery appropriated from a variety of cultural sources. The paper takes as its focus a range of re-photographic activities emanating from New York in the early 1980s in which the author discusses certain issues pivotal to an understanding of the status of contemporary art and its possibilities for critical function.