Category: Recognition and Surplus
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The artworld in the place of Ideas
What renders a work more than the object that supports it? Why this canvas, and not the one adjacent. Why this urinal and not all the other identical urinals in the world. When Arthur Danto coined the term artworld in 1964, he was responding to that question, and his answer established a significant portion of…
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Two Regimes, One Sculpture
In a field in Montauk, there sits a figure in the lotus position, measuring nearly eighteen metres, constructed from twelve shipping containers that traversed the ocean for years before their retirement. Entitled Meditating Figure, the work is by Matt Johnson and has formed part of an open-air exhibition since the end of 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 unseen museum
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…