The shifting status of indexicality voids the “failure” of a major form, painting, and makes it again a mechanism for representation. The force of the ontological real, the ominous reemergence of fascism in Europe, makes this past present again and accessible to such representation. The suspicion of representation characteristic of postmodernism was historically situated. As is demonstrated by Tuymans’ art concerning the atrocities of the last century, and debates around that art, shifting historical conditions have undermined foundations of that suspicion.
Read moreIn Review: Benjamin Buchloh’s Formalism and Historicity, Conclusion
The case of Goldin detailed some of the problems, as revealed by historical trajectories of the relevant mass movements, with ideology critique – particularly when that approach does not account for on-the-ground political factors. The case of Buren detailed specific historical circumstances in which an ideology critique and institutional critique approach came into being in the first place. Lastly, the case of the highly political “Figures of Authority” again detailed another set of specific historical circumstances, the fundamental transformations of which rendered Buchloh’s two conceptions of ideology critique, “before” and “after,” profoundly disjunct.
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