Category: Recognition and Surplus
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The artworld in the place of Ideas
There is a question that has permeated the philosophy of art since its first formulation and which is almost never articulated as what it truly is: what renders a work more than the object that sustains it? Why this canvas, and not the one beside it? Why this urinal and not all the others...
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Two Regimes, One Sculpture
In a field in Montauk, there sits a figure in the lotus position, nearly eighteen metres tall, constructed from twelve shipping containers that traversed the sea for years before being decommissioned. It is titled Meditating Figure, by Matt Johnson, and has been part of an open-air exhibition since late June. For the...
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Who is accountable for the verdict
The oldest institution of contemporary art will distribute its awards this year by visitor vote. This is neither a citizen participation initiative nor a curatorial experiment: it is what remained when the jury departed and the vacancy required resolution within days. The Venice Biennale has been since…
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The catalogue ornament
An image divided in two is circulating these days. On the left, a downspout gargoyle in the shape of a fish, aged metal against light stone, with scrolls and leaves carved around it. On the right, a grey pipe with its elbow, screwed into a wall. Above, a question: why we ceased to concern ourselves with beauty. And…
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The museum pavement
There is a detail in this story that explains it entirely, and it is advisable to begin with it. On 24 July, a United States executive order mandated the installation of signs warning visitors to the National Museum of American History that its exhibitions should be renewed and directing them to other locations where they might find truthful information regarding the…
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The museum that is not seen
When one traverses a great museum, one has the impression of viewing its collection. One is not viewing it. One is viewing a minuscule selection, and the remainder—the vast portion—resides elsewhere: in climate-controlled warehouses, in numbered crates, on grid racks where paintings hang on edge like folders in a filing cabinet. The…