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Bettina Rheims (by Serge Bramly)
How to define what photography is, what distinguishes it from its elders, painting, engraving, drawing (to which it was for a long time subservient) or, if you'd rather, what constitutes this specific mode of representation? When Bettina Rheims began her career in the late 1970s, only a small number of books were devoted to photography and the question remained embryonic, possibly unformulated. A few studies were beginning to surface, such as Susan Sontag's; Barthes had not yet published Camera Lucida; rare were the monographs that allowed us to tackle a coherent set of works. In a way it was a new age of pioneers, both for artists and for galleries, and the public and private collections that were gradually emerging.