Even before being printed in a book to narrate true life, however brutal or idyllic, or to recall the features of a face, photography has been "exhibited" to audiences since its early years. A history of the medium told through its exhibitions, and through the theory that has accompanied them, had never been attempted. The book traces the aesthetic schools and communication theories that have marked the evolution of the history of photography and its public moments par excellence: exhibitions. Installations manifest values, ideologies, politics and aesthetics, and a history of exhibitions is a different and original way of studying the medium as a means of expression and contemporary communication. Today photography plays its role on the art and collectors’ market with unexpected strength: the discovery and success of a new talent depend on the joint work of private galleries, public spaces and international attention, of American and European museums, of great art events and festivals, and of galleries that find new talents and new ways of showing them.