Thus, reinventing the medium means —not collapsing all media into a gray goo of digital data.
Critics have noted that Krauss’s model works best for artists who produce a coherent body of work around a single support (e.g., Nauman, Coleman, William Kentridge). It is less applicable to eclectic or purely discursive practices. rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf
To understand Krauss’s 1999 essay, one must look back to her 1986 essay, “The Originality of the Avant-Garde.” There, she dismantled the myth of the Romantic genius. By the late 1990s, the art world was obsessed with “interactivity” and “dematerialization.” Critics argued that digital art had no medium—only code and screens. Thus, reinventing the medium means —not collapsing all
For Krauss, the crisis of modern art occurred when artists could no longer blindly rely on these conventions. The old supports (the canvas, the pedestal) became hollow. If art was to survive, it couldn't just abandon the idea of a medium—it had to it. To understand Krauss’s 1999 essay, one must look
: Instead of abandoning the idea of a medium, Krauss suggests artists must "reinvent" it by creating their own internal sets of rules and structures.