Under Blue Cup
by Rosalind E Krauss (9780262016131)

Rosalind E Krauss
Release Date: 10 December 1100
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 142

Categories:

Criticism Individual Artist

Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN: 9780262016131
ISBN-10: 0262016133

In Under Blue Cup, Rosalind Krauss explores the relation of aestheticmediums to memory--her own memory having been severely tested by a ruptured aneurysmthat temporarily washed away much of her short-term memory. (The title, Under BlueCup, comes from the legend on a flash card she used as a mnemonic tool duringcognitive therapy.) Krauss emphasizes the medium as a form of remembering;contemporary artists in what she terms the "post-medium" condition rejectthat scaffolding. Krauss explains the historical emergence of the post-mediumcondition and describes alternatives to its aesthetic meaninglessness, examiningworks by what she calls "knights of the medium"--contemporary artists whoextend the life of the specific medium. These artists--including Ed Ruscha, WilliamKentridge, Sophie Calle, Harun Farocki, Christian Marclay, and JamesColeman--reinstate the recursive rules of a modernist medium by inventing whatKrauss terms new technical supports, battling the aesthetic meaninglessness of thepost-medium condition. The "technical support" is an underlying ground foraesthetic practice that supports the work of art as canvas supported oil paint. Thetechnical support for Ruscha's fascination with gas stations and parking lots is theautomobile; for Kentridge, the animated film; for Calle, photojournalism; forColeman, a modification of PowerPoint; for Marclay, synchronous sound. Their work, Krauss argues, recuperates more than a century of modernist practice. The work ofthe post-medium condition--conceptual art, installation, and relationalaesthetics--advances the idea that the "white cube" of the museum orgallery wall is over. Krauss argues that the technical support extends the life ofthe white cube, restoring autonomy and specificity to the work of art.

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