Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Automat, automatic, automatism : Rosalind Krauss and Stanley Cavell on photography and the photographically dependent arts

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Costello, Diarmuid (2012) Automat, automatic, automatism : Rosalind Krauss and Stanley Cavell on photography and the photographically dependent arts. Critical Inquiry, Vol.38 (No.4). pp. 819-854. doi:10.1086/667426 ISSN 0093-1896.

[img]
Preview
Text
WRAP_costello_667426.pdf - Published Version

Download (1376Kb) | Preview
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/667426

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

How might philosophers and art historians make the best use of one
another’s research? That, in nuce, is what this special issue considers with
respect to questions concerning the nature of photography as an artistic
medium; and that is what my essay addresses with respect to a specific case:
the dialogue, or lack thereof, between the work of the philosopher Stanley
Cavell and the art historian-critic Rosalind Krauss. It focuses on Krauss’s
late appeal to Cavell’s notion of automatism to argue that artists now have
to invent their own medium, both to provide criteria against which to
judge artistic success or failure and to insulate serious art from the vacuous
generalization of the aesthetic in a media-saturated culture at large. Much
in the spirit of ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’, paying attention to the medium
is once again an artist’s best line of defence against the encroachment of new media, the culture industry, and spectacle. That Krauss should appeal
to Cavell at all, let alone in such a Greenbergian frame of mind, is surprising
if one is familiar with the fraught history of debate about artistic media
in art theory since Greenberg. Cavell’s work in this domain has always been
closely associated with that of Michael Fried, and the mutual estrangement
of Fried and Krauss, who began their critical careers as two of Greenberg’s
leading followers, is legendary.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BH Aesthetics
N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
Divisions: Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Krauss, Rosalind E. -- Criticism and interpretation, Cavell, Stanley, 1926- -- Criticism and interpretation, Photography, Artistic, Automatism (Art movement)
Journal or Publication Title: Critical Inquiry
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISSN: 0093-1896
Official Date: 2012
Dates:
DateEvent
2012Published
Volume: Vol.38
Number: No.4
Number of Pages: 36
Page Range: pp. 819-854
DOI: 10.1086/667426
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Restricted or Subscription Access
Date of first compliant deposit: 23 December 2015
Date of first compliant Open Access: 23 December 2015

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us