Cy Twombly: Ego in Arcadia

It should not surprise us that the first major monographic study of the work of Cy Twombly would come to us from France: after all, Twombly’s reputation and reception have been developed earlier and more exuberantly in Europe than in the United States (for example, Pierre Restany wrote on Twombly as early as 1961). We will probably never know whether the reason for the American disregard, or the delayed reception, was primarily the artist’s decision to leave the United States for the shores o..

Cy Twombly : Ego in Arcadia

Il n’y a rien de surprenant à ce que la première grande monographie sur le travail de Cy Twombly soit publiée en France : après tout, c’est l’Europe qui a, bien avant les Etats-Unis et avec beaucoup plus d’enthousiasme, reconnu le talent de Twombly (par exemple, Pierre Restany a écrit sur lui dès 1961). On ne saura probablement jamais si le désintérêt et la réception tardive que lui a réservé l’Amérique étaient dus à sa décision de quitter les Etats-Unis pour les rivages italiens en 1957, ou ..

Renouncing the Single Image: Photography and the Realism of Abstraction

This essay addresses the issue of the relationship between abstraction and realism that it argues is at stake in the rejection of any primacy accorded to the single image, in favour of a sequencing of photographs according to certain, often novelistic and epic ideas of narrative form. Setting out from the opening text of Allan Sekula’s Fish Story, the article explores the competing tendencies towards what Georg Lukács termed ‘narration’ and ‘description’ as these are traced throughout Sekula's project (in part through a comparison with the contrasting works of Andreas Gursky). The essay concludes by suggesting the ways in which it is the irreducible actuality of abstraction within the concrete everydayness of capitalism's social world that means that all photographic ‘realism’ is intrinsically ‘haunted’ by a certain spectre of that ‘self-moving substance in the ‘shape of money’, as Marx calls it, or of the abstract form of capital itself

Archive of Darkness:William Kentridge's Black Box/Chambre Noire

Situating itself in histories of cinema and installation art, William Kentridge's Black Box/Chambre Noire (2005) raises questions about screens, exhibition space, site-specificity and spectatorship. Through his timely intervention in a debate on Germany’s colonial past, Kentridge’s postcolonial art has contributed to the recognition and remembrance of a forgotten, colonial genocide. This article argues that, by transposing his signature technique of drawings for projection onto a new set of media, Kentridge explores how and what we can know through cinematic projection in the white cube. In particular, his metaphor of the illuminated shadow enables him to animate archival fragments as shadows and silhouettes. By creating a multi-directional archive, Black Box enables an affective engagement with the spectres of colonialism and provides a forum for the calibration of moral questions around reparation, reconciliation and forgiveness

Luciano Floridi and contemporary art practice

This article examines how the thinking of Luciano Floridi, especially his emphasis on information, could affect the way we approach art practice. It aims to situate art practice in relation to contemporary informational theories and suggests that the way we view contemporary art practice needs to move beyond existing theories. Key components to Floridi’s philosophy are introduced with relevance to art practice, followed by an analysis of these concepts with examples from the history of art. It is hoped that, by clarifying some of the more complex terms and concepts, readers will form a better understanding of the connections and potential synergy between art practice and the sciences of information, through the philosophy of Floridi

Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry : Essays on European and American Art from 1955 to 1975

Spanning twenty years of Buchloch’s criticism, this collection comprises nineteen essays by the author, each of them focusing on one artist in particular while situating the work in a specific historical and theoretical context. The essays take a dialectical approach to the development of an understanding of avant-garde art practices and the cultural conditions of their production in Europe and the United States after the Second World War. Index, 16 p. Circa 460 bibl. ref

David Lamelas : A New Refutation of Time

Presenting Lamelas's production from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, this comprehensive catalogue documents and describes approximately fifty of his works - many with the artist's comments - reflecting the evolution and diversity of a practice mainly linked to Conceptualism. Buchloh elaborates on the progression of Lamelas's advanced artistic position - notably through his critical dialogue with sculpture, exhibition and public spaces, and media technology - which was formulated outside European and American hegemonic centres. Includes an interview, short artist's statement and a complete videography. Texts in English and German. Biographical notes. 19 bibl. ref