Fish Story

Initially published in print in collaboration with Richter Verlag, Dusseldorf and the Fotografiska Museet in Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Tramway, Glasgow; Le Channel, Scène nationale and Musée des Beaux Arts et de la Dentelle, Calais

Texts by: Allan Sekula, “Fish Story,” “Dismal Science” Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, “Allan Sekula: Photography between Discourse and Document”

With the exhibition *Fish Story* , American artist Allan Sekula (1951) reconstructed a realist model of photographic representation, while taking a critical stance towards traditional documentary photography.

Though there is a long artistic tradition of depicting harbors, ships and coastlines, few contemporary artists are continuing it. In *Fish Story* Sekula picked up this tradition, demonstrating the history and future of maritime space not only as a visual space but also as a socio-economic one. Fish Story was his third project in a related cycle of works that deal with the imaginary and actual geography of the advanced capitalistic world. A key issue in *Fish Story* is the connection between containerized cargo movement and the growing internationalization of the world industrial economy, with its effects on the actual social space of ports.