Rosalind Krauss Reinventing The Medium Pdf -

. Krauss argues that for art to be meaningful, it must work within a set of constraints—it must have "rules" that the artist can follow or break.

To understand why "Reinventing the Medium" is so important, one must first understand the moment in which it was written. By the late 20th century, the traditional understanding of an art "medium" was in a state of collapse. The concept of medium specificity, famously championed by the formalist critic Clement Greenberg, argued that each artistic medium had a unique, inherent essence. For painting, that essence was "flatness"; for sculpture, it was three-dimensionality. The goal of art, in this view, was to purify the medium by eliminating anything extraneous.

The table below outlines the key contrasts:

Krauss, Reinventing The Medium (Critical Inquiry 1999) - Scribd

The essay is also compiled in Krauss’s influential book, Perpetual Inventory (MIT Press), which expands on these themes across various contemporary artists. rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf

The shift toward the "post-medium" in Krauss’s later work (and in her co-authored book Art Since 1900 ) mark a crucial evolution in art criticism.

This public link is valid for 7 days and shares a thread, including any personal information you added. This link or copies made by others cannot be deleted. If you share with third parties, their policies apply. Can’t copy the link right now. Try again later.

“The post-medium condition does not imply the negation of the medium. On the contrary, it opens the way for the medium’s reinvention.”

Krauss doesn't suggest returning to oil on canvas. Instead, she argues that artists must find a new "technical support" By the late 20th century, the traditional understanding

Utilized "stone-age filmmaking"—laborious charcoal drawing, erasing, and re-photographing—to create a medium defined by the palimpsest effect and the physical act of erasure.

This document provides an overview and analysis of Rosalind Krauss's essay "Reinventing the Medium." The summary is as follows: 1) Scribd

Summarize Krauss's closely related book, .

This is the crux of "reinventing": the artist does not abandon the medium; they restructure it. They acknowledge its conventions in order to open them up to self-critique. The goal of art, in this view, was

By the 1970s and 1980s, the rise of Conceptual art, installation art, and institutional critique shattered these neat categories. Artists began mixing performance, text, video, and found objects. This gave rise to what Krauss famously termed the

By the late 1990s, however, Krauss observed a new crisis. The total abandonment of medium specificity had led to a generic, international style dominated by commercial installation art, ready-mades, and a nascent digital media culture. In "Reinventing the Medium," Krauss argues that when "anything goes," art loses its capacity for internal critique. Without a specific set of rules or a "medium" to push against, artistic practice risks dissolving into pure entertainment or commercial commodity. The Corey Arcangel and Marcel Broodthaers Crux

Reinventing the Medium: How Rosalind Krauss Redefined Contemporary Art Criticism

—a state where traditional distinctions between artistic media like painting and sculpture have collapsed. Instead of viewing this collapse as a total loss, argues that artists can "reinvent" the medium by adopting a "technical support"