Rosalind Krauss Reinventing The Medium Pdf [patched]

In contemporary art criticism, few essays have exerted as profound an influence as Rosalind Krauss’s "Reinventing the Medium." Originally published in 1999, this seminal text addresses a critical turning point in late 20th-century art: the apparent obsolescence of traditional artistic mediums like painting and sculpture, and the rise of "post-medium" practices. For students, scholars, and art enthusiasts searching for a deeper understanding of this text, analyzing Krauss's arguments reveals why the concept of the "medium" remains vital in the digital age. The Context of Post-Medium Condition

Takeaways for readers and creators:

Today's digital artists often look to Krauss to understand how algorithms, code, or glitch aesthetics can be treated not just as tools, but as reinvented mediums with their own specific histories and rules. Finding the Essay and Further Reading

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To understand Krauss’s 1999 essay, one must look back to her 1986 essay, “The Originality of the Avant-Garde.” There, she dismantled the myth of the Romantic genius. By the late 1990s, the art world was obsessed with “interactivity” and “dematerialization.” Critics argued that digital art had no medium—only code and screens. rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf

They aren't just making "hybrids." They are using the conventions of one medium to critique or expose the conventions of another. They are conscious of the "ghosts" of painting, film, and theater, and they summon those ghosts to create something new.

Krauss uses the example of early video art. When artists like Richard Serra or Joan Jonas first used video, they did not just broadcast content; they critiqued the television monitor itself. They used tape delays, feedback loops, and vertical roll distortions to turn the commercial technical apparatus of TV into a distinct artistic medium.

Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers is another pillar of Krauss’s critique. Broodthaers famously declared the "bankruptcy" of traditional mediums. He created fictional museums, using eagles, signage, and packing crates as his formal tools. For Broodthaers, the "medium" became the institutional framework of the museum itself. By manipulating the language of exhibition, cataloging, and display, he invented a medium out of institutional critique. 3. Ed Ruscha and the Automobile

In doing so, the artist creates —a way for art to be formally intelligent and historically aware after the death of the traditional fine arts. In contemporary art criticism, few essays have exerted

In the landscape of 20th-century art criticism, few essays have shifted the tectonic plates of theory as decisively as Rosalind Krauss’s Published in 1999 in Critical Inquiry (Vol. 25, No. 2), this seminal text arrived at a moment of digital anxiety. Artists were abandoning traditional painting and sculpture for video, installation, and the internet, leading many to declare the “death of the medium.”

Coleman utilizes the slide-tape format—a synchronized system of projected photographic slides and recorded audio. Originally used for school presentations, corporate lectures, and medical training, this format was already becoming obsolete by the 1990s.

Central to Krauss’s argument in "Reinventing the Medium" is the distinction between a mere apparatus and a true artistic medium. She focuses extensively on the work of Irish artist James Coleman, who utilized the seemingly outdated technology of the slide-tape format—a synchronized projection of photographic slides accompanied by recorded audio.

When an artist uses an algorithm to generate an image, what is the medium? Is it photography? Is it coding? Finding the Essay and Further Reading If you

Krauss warned that the completely "post-medium" art world risked aligning perfectly with the logic of global capitalism, where everything is fluid, interchangeable, and consumable. Reinventing a medium creates a space of resistance.

Krauss makes a fascinating distinction between a medium and a genre.

To illustrate reinvention, Krauss analyzes Irish artist James Coleman’s Projected Images (slide projections with voiceover). Coleman does not use “film” (traditional medium) or “photography” (also traditional). Instead, he creates a by combining:

This refers to the physical, commercial technology itself—be it a television, a computer, a smartphone, or a camera. The apparatus is mass-produced, commercially driven, and designed for consumption.

Krauss’s essay is essential reading for anyone working with digital media, installation, or post-internet art. It warns us that without a medium (a structure of repetition and difference), art collapses into “the narcissistic, the formless, or the purely informational.” For example, an Instagram slideshow or a VR experience becomes art only when the artist invents or repurposes a technical logic that structures the viewer’s experience over time.