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Abstract
The question of formalism often gives rise to well-rehearsed notions of political indifference, autonomy, and ahistoricity. Yet what if a radical formalism was deployed––against these normative understandings––as a contextual practice and subversive method of critique? Mobilized into action, “Radical Formalism” proposes that institutionalized understandings of form may be hijacked from within as an alternative strategy of resistance. Examining the work of Charlotte Poseneske as one practitioner of radical formalism, this essay offers ways of considering formalist art objects as carriers of the political. By welcoming contextual readings of form, we move past the superficial and facile readings of the relation between aesthetics and politics, enabling ourselves to understand what form can perform.
Note on contributor
Alan Ruiz is visual artist who lives and works in New York. His work explores the way space is produced as both material and ideology.
Notes
1 Mouffe (Citation2008).
2 Benjamin (Citation[1934] 2008), Author as Producer.
3 Scott (Citation1990, 136), “Domination and the Arts of Resistance.”
4 Loos (Citation[1908] 1930).
5 The work of the Pattern & Decoration Movement should certainly be noted here.
6 Piper (Citation2011a, 248).
7 Ibid., 253
8 Piper (Citation2011b, 243).
9 Ellegood (Citation2013, 84), “Formalism Redefined.”
10 Jones (Citation1994, 27).
11 Mary Kelly’s Postpartum Document is an excellent example of this.
12 Rebentisch (Citation2012, 264).
13 Recently much has been written about the emergence of “zombie formalism,” an undead style of painting generated from resuscitated Greenbergian formulas often seen haunting art fairs. Yet while these critiques of this repeatable typology are absolutely warranted, they are often positioned in relation to questions of the art market, and morphology, which is to say, art’s luxury value. See Robinson (Citation2014).
14 Fraser (Citation2006), “Why Does Fred Sandback’s Work Make Me Cry” Grey Room.
15 Bourdieu (Citation1993, 35).
16 Easterling (Citation2012, 282).
17 Ibid.
18 Posenenske (Citation1968).
19 On the history between public art and urban beautification see Kwon (Citation2002).
20 Posenenske (Citation1968).
21 Ironically, however, in many ways, Poseneske’s work anticipated the transition from mass-production to mass-customization, a hallmark of neoliberal consumption.