Rosalind Krauss Reinventing The Medium Pdf [upd] -

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

: She highlights artists like James Coleman and Marcel Broodthaers as pioneers who used technical supports (like slide projections) to establish a new kind of artistic "specificity." 📖 Summary of the Argument

Under Clement Greenberg’s modernism, the “medium” was defined by its physical limits. Painting was flatness and pigment; sculpture was volume and gravity. The goal of modernist art was to purify the medium, stripping away anything that belonged to another art form (literature, theater, architecture). By the 1970s, however, this logic had exhausted itself. Minimalism and Conceptualism attacked the very idea of artistic purity, leading many critics to declare the death of the medium. rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf

Rosalind Krauss's 1999 essay "Reinventing the Medium" argues that artists can counter the "deadening generality" of postmodernism by engaging in "redemptive obsolescence," utilizing technologically outdated mediums as new "technical supports". By embracing "differential specificity," artists like James Coleman and William Kentridge redefine artistic mediums through recursive, rule-based structures rather than traditional material purity. Read the full article at Critical Inquiry . Reinventing the Medium | Critical Inquiry: Vol 25, No 2

“a set of conventions that are derived from a technical support, but that are not reducible to that support, and that can be repeated across different works, generating a tradition.” This document provides an overview and analysis of

The essay posits that every genuine artistic medium is a form of . The artist does not invent a new medium from scratch. Rather, they find a dormant technical support (like a postcard, a phonograph, or a video monitor) and "reinvent" it by uncovering its internal, forgotten logic.

Reinventing the Medium: Rosalind Krauss and the Post-Medium Condition By the 1970s, however, this logic had exhausted itself

If you are building a reading packet, find these companion PDFs alongside Krauss’s essay:

Her target was Clement Greenberg’s formalism. Greenberg argued that each medium should purify itself (painting should be only flatness and pigment). Krauss argued the opposite: The post-medium condition allows an artist to reinvent a medium from scratch for each project.

Allows multi-media and conceptual works to retain structural and critical integrity. Conclusion: The Enduring Legacy of Krauss’s Critique

Reinventing the Medium: How Rosalind Krauss Redefined Contemporary Art Criticism