The last decade has seen a huge growth in interest in photography and its role in contemporary art. This relatively recent art form is now recognised as central to modern art exhibition and practice. In this book David Bate introduces the key themes through selected visual examples and references to contemporary debates and issues, while also providing a historical overview. Featuring works from a wide and international selection of artists, the book includes conceptual and post-conceptual work, documentary photography, archives and social networks, and performance. It focuses on the increasingly global nature of the field, not just the Anglo-American/European context, but also the important emerging regions of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This is an essential introductory guide to thinking about photography in its relation to contemporary art from a leading writer in the field.

As surreal images become ever more common through the ease of computer manipulation, the place in history occupied by Surrealism and the Surrealists can easily be lost to sight. This challenging re-evaluation of the status and use of photographic images in historical Surrealism puts Surrealism's fundamental issues back into the framework of its historical purpose and function. David Bate examines automatism and the photographic image, the Surrealist passion for insanity, ambivalent use of Orientalism, use of Sadean philosophy and the effect of fascism of the Surrealists. The book is illustrated wtih a wide range of surrealist photographs.