An Eternal Esthetics of Laborious Gestures

Allan Sekula (1951–2013) was an artist, photographer, historian, critic, and filmmaker. His many books include Photography against the Grain: Essays and Photo Works 1973–1983 (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1984), Fish Story (Witte de With/Richter Verlag, 1995), Geography Lesson: Canadian Notes (MIT Press, 1997), Dismal Science: Photo Works 1972–1996 (Illinois State University, 1999), Performance under Working Conditions (Generali Foundation/Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2003), TITANIC's wake (Le Point du Jour Éditeurs, 2003), and Polonia and Other Fables (The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago/Zachęta National Gallery of Art, 2009). His film The Forgotten Space (2010), codirected with Noël Burch, won the Orizzonte Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. He taught in the Program in Photography and Media at the California Institute of the Arts since 1985.