Representation

Representation gets a bad rap.  Its inadequacy is inbuilt; it's doomed to fail us; the thing it strives to capture and communicate endlessly eludes it.  But it's what we have, so we use our crude visual and verbal tools to circumscribe, gibber, and gesture.  Drooling a bit, we imagine a method of communication that would translate its subject perfectly and entirely. Prior to the age of #nofilter, photography was believed to contain this possibility.  Sometimes the medium -- particularly the documentary genre -- still pretends.

-- Cassie Packard, London-based arts writer, "Martha Rosler Tackles the Problem of Representation," Hyperallergic, 16 October 2014