grid

modernism

is the quintessential form of modernity: of the mapping not of reality onto art or vice-versa but, the mapping of art onto art; form without content.

Rosalind Krauss identifies the Grid as the quintessential modernist preoccupation. She explains the abundance of the grid in modernist practice to demonstrate the mapping not of reality onto art or vice-versa but, the mapping of art onto art; form without content. It is the space where the aesthetic object and the physical object become one: ‘considered in this way, the bottom line of the grid is naked and determined materialism.’25

is the quintessential preoccupation in modernity: impervious to language, it makes the work of art purposeless, autonomous, and anti-referential in a way that denies narrativation and contemplation.

For her the grid promotes silence as a refusal of speech. Its visual mesh denies anything exterior any involvement in its contemplation. The grid is impervious to language, anti-referential and denies a narrativation of the seen. It is the artwork in its absolute purposelessness from which according to Krauss it gained its autonomy.

is exemplified by a preoccupation with the grid, of the mapping not of reality onto art or vice-versa but, the mapping of art onto art; form without content.

is exemplified by a preoccupation with the grid; which, impervious to language, makes the work of art purposeless, autonomous, and anti-referential in a way that denies narrativation and contemplation.

Rosalind KrausThinkers

Rosalind Kraus