cover photo



blog archive

main site

artwork

bio






Schwarz



View current page
...more recent posts

This suggestion concentrates on the idea of allegory and appropriation. In Biro's paper 'Allegorical Modernism: Carl Einstein on Otto Dix', Biro reveals a critique of modernist painting as essentially, "appropriationist" [82] and "represententational" which is, needless to say, on an opposing platform to formalism. Biro's paper is specific to the history of the Weimar Republic in the 1920's and 30's and thus differs from Krauss in this respect. Krauss maps her Repressed Modernism across the twentieth century and the conclusion of 'Formless: A User's Guide' suggests how the informe might operate in current art. Biro's project, not being as extensive, leaves us with the task of applying his Allegorical Modernism to more recent practice. Nevertheless, Biro's methodology is similar to Krauss in that, through his analysis of Einstein's article on Dix, he has identified an alternative to formalist critique, not from a post-modern point of view but, like Krauss, from within modernist discourse during the 1920's and 30's. What is interesting here is that Bataille and Einstein were editors and main contributors to the short lived Parisian journal Documents, published during 1929 to 1930, the significance of which is of current concern.

[link] [add a comment]