Top 11 Quotes by Martha Rosler

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

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

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

Martha Rosler

Photography, Bears, Representation

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

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

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

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

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

Martha Rosler

Running, Art, Political

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

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