How can artists resist the flattening effects of big-tech platforms?
Reinventing a medium is an act of resistance. By establishing a strict, self-imposed set of rules (like Coleman’s slide intervals or Ruscha’s strict geographic parameters), artists create a space for critical thinking that stands apart from the mindless consumption of mass media. Why Researchers Seek the PDF: The Lasting Legacy
"Reinventing the Medium" is not merely a philosophical treatise; it is grounded in the practice of specific artists. Krauss uses her new framework to analyze artists who do not fit into the old categories.
In her essay, Krauss draws heavily on historical and contemporary examples to ground her theory. Two figures are central to her argument: 1. Walter Benjamin and the "Aura" of Obsolescence rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf
Krauss disagreed with the idea that the medium simply vanished. In "Reinventing the Medium," she posits that for postwar avant-garde artists, the medium does not disappear; instead, it becomes a .
For researchers, the phrase "Rosalind Krauss reinventing the medium pdf" is a common search term. Here is a breakdown of where and how to locate the document.
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For Krauss, Ruscha’s medium is – a pure technical support for serial enumeration.
A true artistic medium must have —not technological specificity, but formal and operational specificity derived from an artist’s sustained exploration of a support.
Following Clement Greenberg, Modernism (e.g., Abstract Expressionism) insisted on the purity of the medium—painting should only be painting (flatness), sculpture only sculpture. Why Researchers Seek the PDF: The Lasting Legacy
Rosalind Krauss, a leading art historian and critic, edited the seminal 1997 volume . The book, published by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, gathers essays that explore how contemporary artists re‑contextualize photography, treating it less as a documentary tool and more as a conceptual medium.
However, by the 1960s and 70s, artists began to reject this purism. They embraced the "expanded field," blending performance, video, and text. The orthodox medium seemed to collapse. Many critics proclaimed that the medium was an obsolete concept—a relic of a bourgeois obsession with categorization.
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By redefining the medium as a generative set of rules rather than a physical substance, Krauss provided a vocabulary to critique and validate complex contemporary practices, including digital art, video art, and conceptual photography. Conclusion: The Legacy of Krauss’s Theory