Krauss identifies a specific historical moment she calls the "post-medium condition"
"Reinventing the Medium" has had a significant impact on contemporary art discourse, influencing artists, critics, and curators to think more critically about the nature of artistic media. The essay has also contributed to a broader rethinking of art history, encouraging scholars to consider the complex and multifaceted ways in which art has evolved over time. rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf
For Krauss, to reinvent the medium is to refuse the amnesia of the "post-medium" age. It is an insistence that art requires a set of constraints—a set of rules to push against. Whether it is the grid of Sol LeWitt or the "deadpan" photography of the Dusseldorf School, the reinvented medium proves that boundaries are not just barriers; they are the very ground upon which art builds its meaning. Krauss identifies a specific historical moment she calls
| Theme | How It Appears in the Book | |-------|----------------------------| | | Krauss revisits Clement Greenberg’s idea, arguing that photography now interrogates its own materiality—its surface, light, and mechanical processes—rather than merely representing reality. | | The “Post‑Photographic” | Essays discuss works that blur the line between image and object (e.g., installations, digital manipulations), showing how artists treat the photograph as a site for theory and experience. | | Historical Dialogue | Contributors trace links from early modernist photographers (e.g., László Moholy‑Nagyi) to late‑20th‑century practices, emphasizing continuity and rupture. | | Institutional Critique | The book examines how museums and galleries frame photographic works, questioning the authority of exhibition spaces in defining what counts as “art.” | | Technology & Materiality | Discussions of digital printing, Xerox, and video highlight how new technologies expand the photographic vocabulary. | It is an insistence that art requires a
In the late 1990s, two dominant views of media prevailed:
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: