The Eye, the Body and the Word. Rosalind Krauss on the Sculpture of Richard Serra. A “Close Reading” of the Text
Piotr Juszkiewicz
juspiotr@amu.edu.plAdam Mickiewicz University, Poznań (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4137-3412
Abstract
This essay is an example of a “close reading” of a text in the field of art criticism. The postulate of “reading closely” is effectuated by paying analytical attention to four fundamental elements of a text: the construction of the narrating subject; the conception of an artwork embedded in the text; the modes of description adopted therein; the principle of ordering the field of artistic tradition. The subject of the analysis is Rosalind Krauss’s text on the output of Richard Serra, who, according to the author, played a part in the crucial transformation of American art associated with abandoning the philosophical assumptions and artistic practice of abstract expressionism. The analysis reveals a convergence between the formation of the essential aspects of the text and its implication, which is critical towards the effects of the endeavours undertaken by the members and supporters of this artistic formation.
Keywords:
art criticism, minimal art, Richard Serra, Rosalind KraussReferences
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Authors
Piotr Juszkiewiczjuspiotr@amu.edu.pl
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4137-3412
Piotr Juszkiewicz (b. 1959) is a historian of art, a professor at the Institute of Art History of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He has been a stipendiary of the Cambridge University, the Getty Grant Program, Rochester University, and Edinburgh University. He has lectured at the Universita ha-Ivrit in Jerusalem and Eesti Kunstiakadeemia in Tallinn. The areas of his scholarly interest are the art of Modernism in the 19th and 20th century, modern art, and art criticism in the 18th to 20th centuries. He has been the editor of numerous publications, including Melancholia Jacka Malczewskiego [Melancholy by Jacek Malczewski] (Poznań, 1998) and Perspektywy współczesnej historii sztuki (Poznań, 2009), as well as the author of the studies: Wolność i metafizyka. O tradycji artystycznej twórczości Marcela Duchampa [Freedom and Metaphysics. On the Artistic Tradition of Marcel Duchamp] (Poznań, 1995), Od rozkoszy historiozofii do gry w nic. Polska krytyka artystyczna czasu odwilży [From the Delights of Historiosophy to “a Game of Nothing”. Polish Art Criticism in the Period of Political Thaw] (Poznań, 2005) and Cień modernizmu [The Shadow of Modernism] (Poznań, 2013). In 2012–2015 he headed the research project on the topic of the Polish documentary film on art in the period 1945–1989. In 2021 he was the curator of the exhibition at the National Museum in Cracow entitled Nowy początek. Modernizm w II RP [A New Beginning. Modernism in the Second Republic of Poland]. Currently he is preparing another exhibition in the same museum: Nowoczesność reglamentowana. Modernizm w PRL [Rationed Modernity. Modernism in the People’s Republic of Poland].
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