The Afterlife of Medium-Specificity II

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 4 considers Krauss’s appeal to Stanley Cavell on ‘automatism’ to underwrite her own critique of what she call the ‘post-medium condition’, the widespread belief that specific artistic media are no longer relevant to grasping the value of art. Against this, Krauss argues that even artists working outside traditionally sanctioned media are best understood as inventing their own medium. The author questions whether Krauss can get what she needs for this understanding of artistic media from Cavell. While Cavell’s account makes sense of artists reinventing convention, by reanimating existing artistic media in previously unexpected ways, it could not make sense of artists inventing entirely new media ex nihilo, especially media that could then only be practiced by one. The chapter draws on Krauss’s essays on Kentridge, Coleman, and Ruscha to make this case. The chapter concludes by considering whether Krauss’s understanding of artistic media might still be coherent, independently of its claims on Cavell.