Part 2
I’m relieved to feel I’m on a similar track in my own work with regards to self and context. Reading Sean Burke’s Death and Return of the Author, which I have mentioned before in my blog, was a good basis for this concept. And it is born out in Krauss’ essay. I also feel quite relieved to realize that I do in fact find limitations in both views of the self as conceived by abstract expressionists and postmodernists. There is an answer to be sought to the question ‘what does it mean to intend?’ because an intention is never fully realized as conceived. Both the self and context affect each other. The self is neither private nor public, but both. What is the significance of that? Which part is private and which part is public? These questions seem very relevant in our age of social media communication, where we in effect, are made ‘formless’ by the nature of this media and our thoughts float around the ether.
Aside from the question of intention, a growing issue in my work is that of space – figure and ground. Perhaps, everyone feels this issue has been resolved and put to bed a thousand times over. But in Krauss’ essay she goes on to discuss boundary conditions in regards to figure and ground; the bounding edges of a figure and the space around the figure. The issue is one of space being formed by the figure or space forming the figure. (Just like the question of self and context.) She goes on to suggest that in questioning what constitutes a background, ‘by making the background generative rather than passive, one passes through the limits of painting considered as a formal system closed under investigation.’ Granted, she’s discussing this in 1974 when this was a new discovery in painting. But I wonder if it was fully investigated. I can’t really think of that many painters outside Frank Stella and Mel Bochner, who Krauss is discussing at this point in her essay, who did this.
I need to research this and it is why I question if I will ever be able to learn enough. I think maybe I should start cataloguing the questions I have:
What functions now to propel art production forward in place of the defunct avant-garde? (from previous posts)
Where do we go after dematerializing medium?
Can medium truly be redefined?
What does it mean to intend?
Has a generative background been fully explored?
Can chance be directed into intention?
(Gosh, and I haven’t even finished my morning tea yet.)
