Le photographique - Pour une théorie des écarts

Rosalind Krauss is not only one of the most important figures in the history and criticism of modern art in America, but also the one whose concerns should have the greatest resonance in France. A veteran of the American tradition of formalism, she disengaged herself from it, without ever renouncing its critical achievements, to found the journal October in 1976, which rapidly became the essential organ of a transatlantic dialogue. In fact, her critical work is a perfect example of dialogism in action, whether she is rearranging a given field by bringing heterogeneous concepts to bear on it, or simply changing field to test the effectiveness or precariousness of tried-and-tested art-historical methods.
Rosalind Krauss comes from a critical background in the visual arts, and here she tackles photography, which has become a theoretical model and a grid for reading, abolishing itself as an empirical field. At a time when anti-theory dominates, this book proves that there is no better instrument than the conceptual to approach the radical diversity of photography.

Rosalind Krauss is an art historian who teaches at Columbia University in New York. In 1976 she founded the magazine October with Annette Michelson.