Tactility: the interrogation of medium in art of the 1960s

In this: publication
By this: publisher
In this Subject: Arts (General)
By this author: Potts A.

Author: Potts A.

Source: Art History, Volume 27, Number 2, April 2004 , pp. 350-351(2)

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $48.00 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

This article intervenes in current debate about medium by looking back to the 1960s, a moment located on the cusp between medium-based and post-medium conceptions of art. It examines a body of sculptural work where tactile qualities were given priority to the point where the formal values constituting sculpture as a medium were effectively negated. This situation illuminates a larger split emerging in the art world between the focus on materials and physical processes and the impulse to be liberated from the constraints of medium specificity. Such a split, it is argued, relates to divided perceptions of economy at the time when a preoccupation with the materials and processes of industrial production coexisted with a new focus on consumerism. What implications does the subsequent intensification of a consumer-orientated economy have for understandings of the materiality of the art work in a post-medium art world?

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0141-6790.2004.02702005_4.x

Publication date: 2004-04-01