In 1999, the influential American art critic Rosalind Krauss published an essay titled in the journal Critical Inquiry . Over two decades later, this relatively short article remains a cornerstone of contemporary art theory, and the search for its PDF has become a common starting point for students, artists, and scholars. This article examines the essay's central arguments, the context that inspired it, and the practical ways to locate the document online.
Krauss does not advocate a return to Greenbergian purity. Instead, she proposes a "post-medium" condition—a new era where artists deal with the memory of a medium, using obsolete techniques to create new possibilities. 3. The Role of the Obsolete
Krauss argues that the traditional definition of an artistic medium—defined strictly by its physical material, such as oil on canvas or carved marble—has been rendered obsolete by contemporary practices. She terms this historical shift the .
Through October , Krauss became a leading voice in introducing French post-structuralist theory (like the works of Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes) to the American art world. Her work consistently challenges traditional art history, focusing instead on how the structural mechanisms of art produce meaning. Contextualizing "Reinventing the Medium" rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf
A significant portion of the discourse surrounding "Reinventing the Medium" focuses on photography and film. Krauss examines how early practitioners and later avant-garde artists treated the camera not merely as a tool to record reality, but as a structural medium with its own rules—such as the shutter speed, the negative, and the chemical development process. By manipulating these mechanical constraints, artists resisted the reductive, commercial uses of photography in advertising and journalism. Why the Essay Remains Vital Today
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In "Reinventing the Medium," Krauss argues that artists do not work in a vacuum; they work in relation to a set of conventions, techniques, and materials. 1. The Recursive Equation: Medium-Support-Convention In 1999, the influential American art critic Rosalind
: Greenberg collapsed a medium's identity into its material properties. Krauss, drawing on post-structuralist thought (particularly Derrida's deconstruction), argues that a medium is actually "a complex structure of interlocking and interdependent technical supports and layered conventions distinct from physical properties". For her, the specificity of a medium lies in its "constitutive heterogeneity—the fact that it always differs from itself".
Key takeaways from her position include:
The rule-bound, self-generating logic that a chosen medium enforces on the creation of the artwork. Krauss does not advocate a return to Greenbergian purity
In contemporary art criticism, few essays have reshaped our understanding of artistic presentation as profoundly as Rosalind Krauss’s "Reinventing the Medium." Originally published in 1999, this seminal text addresses the crisis of artistic disciplines in the wake of conceptual art, installation, and digital technology. For art historians, students, and curators searching for the foundational theories of contemporary art, finding and analyzing this text is essential to understanding how art moved beyond traditional forms like painting and sculpture. The Core Thesis of "Reinventing the Medium"
A: It is the idea that contemporary art no longer relies on the traditional, pure media of painting or sculpture. Instead, it freely mixes techniques, technologies, and supports, often using "strange new apparatuses" like the car, the camera, or the computer to create new, temporary mediums.
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.