Rosalind Krauss and American Philosophical Art Criticism : From Formalism to Beyond Postmodernism

Annotation. Rosalind Krauss is, without visible rival, the most influential American art writer since Clement Greenberg. Together with her colleagues at ̂IOctober̂R, the journal she co-founded, she has played a key role in the introduction of French theory into the American art world. In the 1960s, though first a follower of Greenberg, she was inspired by her readings of French structuralist and post-structuralist materials, revolted against her mentor's formalism, and developed a succession of radically original styles of art history writing. Offering a complete survey of her career and work, ̂IRosalind Krauss and American Philosophical Art Criticism: From Formalism to Beyond Postmodernism̂R comprises the first book-length study of its subject. Written in the lucid style of analytic philosophy, this accessible commentary offers a consideration of her arguments as well as discussions of alternative positions. Tracing Krauss's development in this way provides the best method of understanding the changing styles of American art criticism from the 1960s through the present, and thus provides an invaluable source of historical and aesthetic knowledge for artists and art scholars alike. Introduction : the rise of philosophical art criticism In the beginning was formalism The structuralist adventure The historicist, antiessentialist definition of art Resentment and its discontents The deconstruction of structuralism Afterword : the fate of philosophical art criticism. Studies the work of the most original and influential present-day art critic, Rosalind Krauss, tracing her development from her formalist writings in the 1960s through the post-structuralism of the current academic climate. A major philosophical art critic changes how his contemporaries look at visual art. David Carrier. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.