You might read “Reinventing the Medium” and wonder if it is merely an artifact of 1990s theory. On the contrary, its relevance has exploded.
This is the crux of It is not about working within the rules of a medium; it is about dismantling the medium to find its hidden, structural truths.
In her landmark 1999 essay “Reinventing the Medium,” Rosalind Krauss responds to a crisis in contemporary art: the idea that we live in a “post-medium condition,” where artists can use any material or technology freely. While this sounds liberating, Krauss argues it leads to a loss of critical rigor. She offers a powerful defense of the medium —not as a traditional category (like oil painting or bronze sculpture), but as a set of technical conventions and recursive rules that generate meaning. rosalind krauss reinventing the medium pdf
Krauss illustrates this theory brilliantly through the work of Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers, particularly his installation Musée d'Art Moderne, Département des Aigles . Broodthaers took the medium of the "museum"—an institution traditionally seen as a container for art—and treated it as an artistic medium itself.
Example: Charon’s Fee (1984) – a single slide of a Greek temple’s interior, accompanied by a narrative about a tourist’s near-death experience. The medium’s “rule” is that meaning emerges from the between seeing and hearing. You might read “Reinventing the Medium” and wonder
For example, consider the medium of video art. It is not simply "electronics" or "magnetic tape." According to Krauss, the medium of video is defined by . The closed-circuit loop—the ability to project the self onto a screen in real time—creates a specific psychological and aesthetic condition. Artists like Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci didn't just use video; they reinvented the medium by exploring the recursive loop between performer and monitor.
Medium specificity is no longer about material purity but about the internal rules and "recursive structures" an artist builds within their chosen support. Essential Case Studies In her landmark 1999 essay “Reinventing the Medium,”
In the late 1990s, two dominant views of media prevailed: