The Iconoclasm of painting; Modernism into Provisionalism

Painting has always commanded an authority due to status in the art-historical canon. Perhaps then it was inevitably that once the radical, anti-establishment modernists came along it was for the gallows.

Preface The following essay is a condensed version of a longer thesis, ‘What effect has the post-medium-condition had on the continuation of painting’, and includes sections of an independently written essay, ‘Bonfire of the Vanities: The Avant-garde and Modern Painting’. The original essay identified two case studies. The first was an exhibition of the work of Richard Tuttle in 1965, which was used as a connective between medium specificity and the post-medium through the development of painting. The second was both a 2009 essay by Raphael Rubinstein (Provisional Painting) and a 2008 work by Richard Aldrich. Both case studies have a reduced presence in this essay and the conclusion has been removed. The essay attempts to define not the impact of the post-medium-condition on painting, but rather the causality it has had on changing attitudes towards contingency that manifest themselves within contemporary painting. To understand fully the complex of contemporary practice, particularly that of contemporary painting, an historical cause must first be established. Modern thought has been constructed on the ideological force of progress and one can identify the modern ideal of progress as negational reductionism. The terminology ‘negational reductionism’ is admittedly pleonastic, however it is used here to signify the impact of progression-as-reductionism on contingency. Reductionism progresses towards a finality of a most reduced form at which development is afforded two options; culmination or reversal. The modern imposition of reductionism is experienced most acutely within painting. Painting’s engagement in reductionism is restricted both within pictorial boundaries of simplifying represented form and in its structure as medium. A continuation of reductionism within modernist painting is thus limited; necessitating reductionist progression within the structures of medium-specificity. Reductionism can continue however, with the removal of these boundaries of medium as specific. In the early 1960’s the demarcation of medium was rejected, the extension and preservation of an ideology of reductionism was defined by Rosalind Krauss as a ‘post-medium condition’. In order to understand what impact the post-medium-condition has had on painting one must understand the dialectical interplay that both have with reductionism. Through this framework a definition of painting’s continuation can be established as it gives a characterization to its initial negation. II The Conditioning of History i. The pre-development of the post-medium-condition “There [has] come into being an art world whose history, regardless of the credos of its practitioners, has consisted of leaps from vanguard to vanguard, and political mass movements whose aim has been the total renovation not only of social institutions but of man himself” (Rosenberg, 1962, p. 11) The implications of Harold Rosenberg’s definition of Modernism suggest that there had arose a particular conditioning of artistic discourse that mapped the success of an artist on the legitimacy of their status as ‘vanguard’. Rosenberg’s describes this paradoxical situation as that ‘the famous ‘modern break with tradition’ [had] lasted long enough to have produced its own tradition’ (Rosenberg, 1962, p. 11)[1]. Clement Greenberg, speaking in reference to the art climate of 1950’s America, similarly identifies a major cause of the necessity to produce ‘vanguard’ work originating from Marcel Duchamp, stating that; ‘you made yourself significant, not by producing good art, but by producing recognizably avant-garde art with shocks and surprises’ (Greenberg, release date: 2000)[2]. A transgressive act and Rosenberg’s definition of a ‘vanguard’ act are not easily distinguished as they exist mutually dependent. If a new act is a transgression of an existing paradigm, progression then exists as consecutive transgressions against formalism. The transgressions of modernist painting naturally manifest themselves as negational in order to exist as a liberation from formalist structure. Understanding reductionism in modernist progression will show that medium-specificity is antithetical with it. Greenberg’s formalization of dogmatic medium-specificity, in his essays that necessitate medium essentialism in the 1950’s and 60’s, is contradictory to the definition of Modernism as a liberation from formalist structure [3]. Greenberg’s essays also find a strong incompatibility with the necessity for negational definitions of progression that Modernism subscribed to; the ‘truism that the best art is that which moves on from previous art’ (Greenhalgh, 2005, p. 107). An incompatibility occurs between Modernism’s ontology of progression within the delimitation of the structures governing medium-specificity. An oxymoron that resolved Modernism, as a critical position, into a state of compromise. The necessity for reductionism infers a possible implication; an inevitable extension of reductionism that is incompatible with the development of medium specificity. The logic of continuing reductionism implies a finality in its most reduced form. In the context of ‘medium-specific’ or medium-governed production, a continued logic of negational reductionism ultimately negated the structure that supported it; taking the form of a post-medium condition. The post-medium-condition does not constitute a movement but rather a corollary causality of reductionism as progression. Rosalind Krauss, writing in A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in age of the post-medium condition, identifies the demise of medium-specificity within Modernism. In doing so she similarly identifies a conceptual framework that delineates a continuation for artistic production through the dissolution of medium-based structure. The post-medium-condition is of primary concern to the continuation of painting as it self-evidently constitutes a repudiation and negation of presupposing the framework of medium. Under such a ‘condition’, a continuation of painting deserves critical attention as it cannot manifest itself in the same reductionist model as in Modernism. ii. Strategies of assimilating painting into a post-medium framework For Krauss the conception of the post-medium-condition constituted the inevitable finality of the reductionist model within medium-specific Modernism; characterized by the declarative gestures of Marcel Broodthaers. Broodthaers’s statement, which Krauss interprets as ‘FIN ARTS’, becomes not the end of art but the end of the arts as individual disciplines, replaced in favor of a “higher aesthetic unity” (Krauss, 1999, pp. 9-12)[4]. Within a post-medium condition the explication of the purpose of art becomes dissociated with the singular introspection of medium, thus ‘the ontological labor of the modernist artist [becoming] to define the essence of art itself’ (Krauss, 1999, p10). The disestablishment of modernist categorization can be seen to be in direct conflict medium-specificity. Broodthaers’s declaration that media is interchangeable effectively compromises the presupposed medium-structure of painting. A view that is supported by his 1972 work Section des Figures (The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present), in which the interchangeability of media suggests an anti-hierarchical framework of appropriation and therefore a critique on the categorization of medium. The dissolution of medium can be identified as theoretical reductionism; as the process of sublating multiple theories in favor of a singular one. An important implication of the theoretical reductionism of the post-medium is that the resultant condition allows all material form to become available due to the deconstruction in values prescribed to medium. Subsequently the conclusion drawn on painting is that a return to a medium-based approach, is an act comparable to that of re-codifying medium, thus supporting the claim for the post-medium-condition to constitutes a “wholly new beginning of a new historical sequence” (McEvilley, 2005, p. 368) [5]. A continuation of painting is problematic within a ‘new historical sequence’ hostile to it. The work in a 1965 solo exhibition by Richard Tuttle at the Betty Parsons Gallery, titled Richard Tuttle: Constructed Paintings (see Figs. 1-7), was made to allow for painting as a rejection and a negation of the essentialist’s demarcation of painting and thus inclusive within a post-medium-condition. The work created for the exhibition were a series of painted monochrome forms. The ‘monochrome’ is fundamental to understanding the work’s association to form. Similar to the work of the 1960’s ‘Shaped Canvas’ movement, of artists like Frank Stella, Robert Mangold, Al Loving, or Leo Valledor, Tuttle’s monochrome suggests a further reduced emphasis of painterly aspects. The finality of modernist reductionism had yielded the ‘triumph(...) of painting so reduced to zero that nothing was left but an object, in the form of the monochrome’ (Krauss, 1999, p. 53)[6]. Tuttle’s continuation was a reference to the monochrome as finality in painting and its subsequent sublation into a sculptural form. The sublation of painting infers that in becoming absorbed under a broader category it similarly negates the original category. The consequence of Tuttle’s action is the assimilation of painting into a sculptural form and the negation of the medium-specific theories of painting. His monochromes no longer function within the definition given to painting but reside in a space between painting and sculpture. In doing so both mediums sublate, that is they are appropriated into a singular entity in order to negate the demarcation of either. Tuttle’s work differentiates itself from the theories of modernist essentialism and thus characterizes painting when in the context of a post-medium object. iii. Sculpture as infinitely malleable To understand painting in the context of a ‘post-medium-object’ the involvement of sculpture within the same context firstly requires explication. A philosophy of appropriation in the post-medium-condition can be identified as that of everything as available object. Duchamp’s prognostication that “the category of the readymade would be extended until it embraced the whole galaxy of objects with which we are surrounded” (Joseph Masheck, 1975, p15) is validated with the dissolution of medium. Seen both through Broodthaers’s declaration of interchangeable media and emphasized by the terminology of Donald Judd’s Specific Objects; the sublating of medium assimilates all production under a universal category. The multiplicity of appropriation within Broodthaers’s 1972 work constitutes a microcosm of the effect on painting of the rejection of presupposing medium-based categorization[7]. Greenberg had suggested that the intentions of Modernism ‘is that of a progressive surrender to the resistance of medium’ (Greenberg 1940, pp. 296-310). Greenberg’s model in the context of Broodthaers’s work shows a rejection of ‘surrender’ in his rejection of ‘medium’, in favor of continuing reductionism through directing all production towards a singular ‘higher unity’ (Krauss, 1999, pp. 9-12). Broodthaers’s work suggest all potential objects are made available for appropriation with the removal of ‘medium’. The term that Krauss defines as ‘sculpture’ is one that has the potential as to be ‘almost infinitely malleable’ (Krauss, 1979, p 30). Seen in the context of post-medium appropriation, expositions of sculpture have the potential to be transposed and developed within a post-medium condition due to ‘sculpture’ being a conceptual framework. Painting however, does not contain the same appropriation abilities as it is restricted in its delimitation to a particular material. Lucy Lippard’s 1967 essay As Painting is to Sculpture: A Changing Ratio, two years after Tuttle’s exhibition, discusses the assimilation of painting and sculpture. The crux of her argument falling on painting’s relationship to sculpture rather than the reverse; suggesting painting’s assimilation into sculpture through a shared association of “painting and sculpture as physical objects” (Lippard, 1967, p. 31-34). An association displayed, and proven, in Tuttle’s involvement in painting. When Greenberg’s theory of painting is applied to discussing Richard Tuttle’s Constructed Paintings (see Figs. 1-7) the delimitation is unsuitable. Defined by Greenberg the delineation of ‘painting’ is excessively more specific than the more ‘malleable’ framework of sculpture. The monochrome flatness of Tuttle’s painting does conform with the Greenbergian understanding of ‘painting’. However, existing as sculptural form, his work is antithetical to the restrictive definition of ‘painting’ imposed by Greenberg. Tuttle’s engagement with Greenberg’s lack of conclusive or convincing expositions of painting infers an assimilation of painting into a less restrictive ‘sculpture’. From this can be inferred the problematic limitations in the continuation of painting. iv. The paradox of continuing painting As shown in Duchamp own negation of his previous cubist style of painting, reductionism is used as the model for progression within Modernism and one in which painting’s involvement is limited. Rodchenko’s claim in his 1921 work to ‘reduce painting to its logical conclusion’ affirms a finality to painterly simplification; “it's all over. Basic colors. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no representation” (Rodchenko, 1939)[8] [9]. The monochrome is the finality of reductionism within medium-specificity, as Greenberg defines; a ‘real and material plane’ in painting (Greenberg 1940, pp. 296-310). Reductionism within modernist painting consisted of ‘the flat picture plane’s denial of efforts to ‘hole through’ for realistic perspectival space. In making this surrender, painting(...) got rid of imitation’ (Greenberg 1940, pp. 296-310). The involvement of painting with reductionism can only exist with the framework created by the concept of medium-specificity. Without a framework in place progression via reductionism can continue and corollary, painting cannot. A formula of progression consistent with painting-as-medium can only exist as evolutionary revisionism, that is, constructing progression from the alteration and development of existing forms consecutive with an underlying constant. A formula antithetical with Greenberg’s equal insistence for negational reductionism. In effect presenting a paradox for the continuation of Greenbergian painting; necessitating progression through negational reductionism within a structure in which it is limited. For Greenberg progression in Modernism remained “continuous with the past”; taking the form of the underlying constant of ‘medium’ (Greenberg, 1988)[10]. His definition is therefore consistent with evolutionary revisionism and reductionism. These are not as contradictory as would first seem, however they do suggest their potential for progression to be finite. The continuation of painting in the context of sublation is problematic; a continuation as medium-specific would be marginalized by the accusation of reactionary and thus not ‘significant(...) as recognizably avant-garde art’ (Greenberg, release date: 2000)[11]. Conversely, a continuation of painting as a post-medium practice is naturally antithetical. The influence of a post-medium condition on painting can be seen as presenting a negational logical complement; if the condition of post-medium is established then painting cannot be, if an exposition of painting is made a post-medium-condition cannot claim dominance as a model for continuation[12]. The proliferation of post-medium practices, and the depletion of directions taken in medium-specific painting, supports the post-medium’s claim to dominance [13]. Inferred is both the potential for development in the post-medium being greater and thus the unendurable medium-based terminology painting. Potential development is seen as more viable in methods of production that are not continually tied to the conditions of evolutionary revisionism within pre-existing structures and thus such structures are abandoned. The dissolution of these structures amounts to a finality in the definition of painting; as it becomes sublated into a wider post-medium definition. Tuttle’s monochromes reference Rodchenko’s ‘logical conclusion of painting’, in suggesting its logical continuation through sublation with the dissolution of medium-specific structures. In Arthur Danto’s After The End of Art 1997, the ‘end’ can be seen as the finality of reductionism as progression taking the form of post-medium, thus corroborating the statement that the definition of reductionist progression within medium-specificity is unsustainable and limited. A post-medium-condition as finality infers that in order to continue progression, reductionism must be re-evaluated. Krauss identifies in Broodthaers a proposed model within the post-medium-condition for continued production; that of unlimited possible appropriation. Broodthaers’s model however, presents a problem for the continuation of work that negates any conceptual or material boundaries; a landscape of near-infinite directional progression. In such a landscape development can thus have little context. Brian Dupont equates the ‘new post-modern landscape’ as having no ‘directional movement(...) distinguishable from another’ (Dupont, 2014). The suggestion of near-infinite appropriation implies that possible directional progression is similarly near-infinite. Broodthaers’s model positions both arguments for and against a post-medium-condition as problematic for progressive production and therefore continuation. As Jan Verwoert writes in his 2005 essay Why are Conceptual artists painting again?; “A radical understanding of historical critical conceptualism(...) requires every producer of art to change history by coming up with a unique idea starting from absolute zero(...) he/she must do this in a manner that is both clear and lucid. The pressure to succeed, which modernism’s dedication to relentless avant-gardeism has already introduced, is now experienced even more acutely.” (Verwoert, 2005) III Painting versus progression i. Negation as termination Joseph Kosuth’s statement in Krauss’s Voyage on the North Sea identifies the relationship the post-medium-condition has with progression; “being an artist now means the question the nature of art” (1999, p. 10). A culmination in medium-based reductionism presents a problem for the continuation of painting as it supports the claim that such a continuation would constitute a reactionary anachronism as it would attempt to reinstate the historical convention of medium. The declaration of post-medium marginalizes and negates the continuation of medium-specificity. Danto noted that “every art movement of modern times has come with a set of claims that invalidated every other was as unacceptable” (Danto, 1992, p. 223). Such a premise suggests that any contradiction to the post-medium-condition is inherently false as it is inconsistent with the insistence for reductionist progression; supporting the claim that the post-medium-condition constitutes a finality. Under the ‘condition’ of post-medium, Krauss defines direction as “fractionalized pluralism” (Krauss, 1986, pp. 196-209). The lack of defined fields of medium providing unlimited directions available; thus ‘fractionalized’. Based on the premise of a post-medium-condition constructing ‘fractionalized pluralism’ it supports the claim that is similarly constitutes a termination of definable progression. The reductionist acts of the post-medium outline the critical role it has in its rejection of contingency. The anti-medium acts of Broodthaers, Klein, Kosuth, Weiner, and to an extent Tuttle, as well as other significant movements in the 1960’s and 70’s, do not function simply as an artwork as a consecutive historical entry consistent with evolutionary revisionism [14]. To take Kosuth again as an example; “their content is the signifying process, that is, they signify the signify the signifying process; nothing but the mind is involved” (McEvilley, 2005, p. 366). The implications of Kosuth’s act for development is that it is ended with the inherent finality of reductionism when ‘nothing but the mind is involved’. In Krauss’s Voyage on the North Sea she also makes reference to the placement of the eagle in Broodthaers’s cover of Studio International 1974. Constituting a suggestion that the eagle, in finishing the work ‘FIN’, similarly suggests Broodthaers’s intention to act as a finality. The evidence presented for the claim of the post-medium-condition as a finality suggests that it “functions as the messenger which announced the end of art, the leading edge of the avant-garde which crossed the finish line first, signaling the end of the race” (McEvilley, 2005, p. 368) [15]. The post-medium-condition constitutes a rejection of contingency, an argument supported by its imposition of a negational logical complement; it exists as the final solution to a ‘vanguard’ reductionist development. Whether the view of the post-medium-condition as a finality is to be accepted or not, both positions require an exposition of progression. The argument that the post-medium-condition does constitute a finality is seemingly rather a pessimistic one as it suggests a reduction in further development. Based on the argument for the post-medium’s claim as ‘the end of art’ (Danto, 1997) it constitutes not the end of its production but the end its development; it could be better categorized as an irreversible finality. A continuation of any artistic practice necessitates a new definition of progression as reductionism is inherently unsustainable. A continuation of painting that has a critical awareness of the post-medium-condition, must engage with the contradictions of the engagement with a medium-specific practice. IV Contemporary modes of practice i. The Provisional response Under the conditions of ‘pluralism’ left as a repercussion from the post-medium condition, the act of purely medium-based demarcation is not only rejected but also unachievable. Defined as an entropic, or as a sublating process, reductionism in the post-medium-condition tends toward a state of equilibrium and equality amongst the appropriation of media. After the proliferation of post-medium methods of production in the 1960’s and 70’s, a number of critics and theorizers have sought to determine a riposte that manifests itself as painting. Such a response can be identified in Raphael Rubinstein’s influential 2009 essay, published in Art in America, titled Provisional Painting (see Figs. 8-11) and to a lesser extent in Sharon Butler’s definition of Casualism in 2011 published in Brooklyn Rail. The terminology given to both movements suggest an increasing interest and attention with contingency. In doing so they corroborate the claim and status of the post-medium-condition to constitute, or to at least be perceived as, a form of finality. Accepting the post-medium’s claim to finality, the term ‘provisional’ suggests its repercussions in painting. “Provisional painting is not about making last paintings, nor is it about the deconstruction of painting. It’s the finished product disguised as preliminary stage, or a body double standing in for a star/masterpiece whose value would put a stop to artistic risk” (Rubinstein, 2009). In terming his definition ‘provisional’ Rubinstein allies it heavily to irresolution. The implications of producing seemingly un-resolved work, defined as a ‘provisional act’, exist as an alliance to a form of progression as passivity. The work suggests un-predetermined acts in which the conception of the work is defined not by predetermination but by inadvertence. Although initially the conjunction of passivity and production may be interpreted as oxymoronic, its intentions relate to the declaration of the post-medium as finality. The implication of ‘passivity’ is to eliminate any possible suggestion or accusation of declaring finality. Reinforcing temporality allows the work to subvert notions of out-maneuvering-finalities. The terminology defined ‘provisional’ implies a reflection of the succession of consecutive art movements seen under Modernism; whereby all movements or isms become ‘provisional’ until successively negated and replaced by a newer movement. ‘Provisionalism’ declares an acceptance and self-awareness of the modernist doctrine of progression and thereby a critique of its injunction. It is possible to view Provisionalism both as a response and critique of Modernism as well as the post-medium-condition; through the ideologies of progression in both as ‘effectively un-opposable’ (Greenhalgh, 2005, p. 105). A provisional response is one that emerges from the lack of direction in a post-medium-condition, as well as the model of successive reductionism within the medium-specific development of Modernism. A provisional response would be, as Rubinstein defines, ‘declining to fight’ in order to make an ‘attack on received ideas about painting’ (2009) [16]. The ‘received ideas’ are those inherited by contemporary painting of the declarative gestures of attempting to change the art production landscape [17]. Richard Aldrich, whom Rubinstein mentions in his original 2009 essay and also included in his 2011 exhibition of the same name, optimizes the desultory engagement with progression of provisionalism. In an interview with Gary Garrels Aldrich stated that ‘I feel like there was something intrinsically wrong with thinking you could set out to make something new’ (Aldrich to Garrels, 2011). Provisionalism is thus a form of paradoxical progression; it is not making something new, or negational, in order to challenge the necessity to make something new. A negation of the declarative act can be seen in Aldrich’s response to Fontana’s. In relation to Aldrich’s physical alterations of the the canvas surface (see Figs. 9-10) “it was merely an attempt to solve a problem: he didn’t like what he had previously painted, so he sliced the offending area away” (Griffin, 2011). The notion of desultory impulse, in reference to a once intentional declarative act, suggests the impossibility of such acts being declarative or revolutionary within the post-medium-condition-as-finality. It is possible to suggest that Aldrich is using a reference to a stridently declarative act, in a subversive way, as an instigator for a discussion or challenge to progression. The intentions of Provisionalism to subvert notions of both progression and finality can be seen in the form of a passive-aggressive response to being an inheritor of a negational Modernism. Provisionalism manifests its response by an indirect resistance to assumed notions of progression and historicism. In stridently assuming the position of a movement to be negated, provisionalism is thus a causality of the imposition of repetitive negation. ii. The impossibility of the new “Within each room the individual artist explored, to the limits of his experience and his formal intelligence, the separate constituents of his medium. The effects of his pictorial act was to open simultaneously the door to the next space and close out access to the one behind him” (Krauss, 1972, pp. 48-51). A provisional movement finds an obvious correlation with the successional negations that Krauss defines within Modernism. Provisionality declares a self-acceptance of being a temporary ‘space’ that has the inevitability of being ultimately negated or ‘closed’. An embrace of failure in Aldrich’s work preempts any later negation by the presupposition of its inevitability under the conditions described by Krauss of negational reductionism. A comparison can be drawn between the acceptance of temporality when contrasted with the declarative finality of the post-medium-condition. Rubinstein, in his later 2012 essay, defines provisional painting as ‘what follows after the last painting’ (Rubinstein, 2012); acknowledging both the fallacy of declaring a ‘last painting’ and as a pejorative judgement against the negational declarative act. By positing Provisionalism in conversation with declaring finality he references its rejection of a desire to out-maneuver. For Aldrich, a critique of finality manifests itself as a critique of the desire for the insertion into a historical lineage through the use of a declarative act. Aldrich’s work contrasts particularly strongly with the relationship to production shown in Conceptualism. Within Conceptualism “all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair” (LeWitt, 1967), for Aldrich the opposite is true [18]. Rubinstein encourages the acceptance of doubt and inadvertence within production as a rejection of pre-rationalization. It is possible to suggest that Rubinstein is then also rejecting reductionist progression by supporting progression via inadvertence, rather than ideology. A characterization of Aldrich’s attitude to a predetermined, or deliberate, action can be seen through his work If I Paint Crowned I’ve Had it, Got Me? (see Fig. 9). The title is a reference to a passage of Cézanne’s Doubt by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a passage that in turn references the predetermined intentions of Cézanne. Aldrich subverts intention by rejecting a deliberate method of production, as seen in Jonathan Griffin’s characterization of his spontaneous cutting of the picture surface. Rejecting predetermination liberates Aldrich from the pressure of success via a negational declarative act and thus provisionalism is supportive of contingency. Both characterizations are those of painters, by making such a comparison Rubinstein distinguishes Aldrich’s support of contingency as one directed at the contingency of, specifically, painting. iii. Contingency under Provisionalism Provisionalism, although a subversion, is nevertheless an engagement with contingency. Unlike both modernist and post-medium ideologies of negational reductionism, Provisionalism, in the suggestion of self negation by the use of the term provisional, does not attempt to negate or marginalize other modes of production. ‘Casualism’ follows a similar model; its terminology indicates an apathetic, at best incidental, approach to the declarative act. In dismissing such acts they similarly dismiss the assumption that “dominant paradigms marginalize other ways of carrying on” (Wood, 1993, p. 237). The implications of taking such an approach critiques the necessary obligation to engage within the repercussive condition of a declarative act and the negational logical compliment it supports. A explication should be made between a declarative act and a provisional one in their reference to historicism. A declarative act exists as a contingent truth. Opposed to a necessary truth, which is true regardless of external conditions (a priori), a contingent truth relies on external conditions to exist as a truth, in this case a historical one (a posteriori). Therefore, a declarative act cannot exist as a necessary truth as it is declaring a direction taken from assumed historical convention. A characterization of the declarative act as a contingent truth is seen through the perception between the acts of Fontana and Aldrich; a once declarative act now exists as a trivial one. An alteration in perception that is due to the nature of successive progression through the obligation of ‘vanguard’ transgressions, defined by Krauss as ‘closing out access to the one [an act] behind’ (Krauss, 1972, pp 48-51). A Provisional act, particularly that identified in If I Paint Crowned I’ve Had it, Got Me?, denies status as a contingent truth due to its rejection of historicism through an appropriation of previous art movements. Aldrich, in making these references, negates the conditions under which his provisional act could identify as being a contingent-truth [19]. Negating the classification of contingent truth is similarly thus a negation of the provisional act being a declarative one. Terminating modernism’s successive acts of negation allows for a critically viable return to painting. A major supporting argument for Provisionalism as a return to painting is Rubinstein definition of the provisional response; under the categorization of ‘Provisional Painting’. As a result he relates it to a specific response in painting rather than a general one. It is worth attention because the work defined claims a tenuous link to a traditional, or Greenbergian, understanding of medium-specific painting [20]. Therefore, the concerns and proposal made by Rubinstein for continuation must be addressed specifically to painting, not art-in-general. Rubinstein’s proposal is however, not declarative. It does not delineate a finalist paradigm but rather shows the limitations of doing so. When seen in contrast to the rhetoric of Greenberg, the position posited by Rubinstein for a continuation of painting is much less ideological, a definitive continuation is not given, only that which can be inferred from the shift in attitudes characterized by Rubinstein’s terminology and thus its implications for painting. Endnotes; 1 The opening of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1929 for example is contradictory to Modernism’s desire for the negation of formal structures. Its conception is a complete inversion of Marinetti’s statement in the Futurist’s manifesto twenty years earlier, to ‘free Italy from her innumerable museums which cover her like countless cemeteries’ (Marinetti, 1909).

2 Quoted on SFMoMA, (Internet)

3 Or ‘medium-specific’ theory.

4 Krauss also makes reference to the placement of the eagle in Broodthaers’s cover of Studio International, 1974, as constituting a suggestion that as the eagle, in finishing the work ‘FIN’, similarly suggests Broodthaers’s intention to act as a finality.

5 An argument that is expanded on in Negation as termination.

6 Although definably ‘modernist’ painting continued long after Rodchenko’s 1921 works Pure Red Colour, Pure Blue Colour and Pure Yellow Colour it does instigate and characterize a desire for ‘the negation of all art in its entirety, and calls into question the necessity of a specific activity of art for the creation of a universal aesthetic’(Varvara Stepanova: Lecture on Constructivism, 22 December 1921.In: Peter Noever: Aleksandr M. Rodchenko - Varvara F. Stepanova. The Future Is Our Only Goal. Munich: Prestel, 1991, pp. 174-178).

7 Section des Figures (The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present)

8 Pure Red Color, Pure Blue Color, and Pure Yellow Color.

9 Quoted in Craig Staff, After Modernist Painting, p.93

10 Quoted in Michael North, Novelty: A History of the New, 2013

11 Quoted on SFMoMA, (Internet)

12 Defined in Classical Logic as Negation

13 Shaped Canvas, Combine, Arte Povera, Pop-Art, Conceptualism, Performance, Situationism,

Installation, Intermedia, Fluxus, Land Art and more recently Post-Internet, Information Art, System Art, Generative and new-media, to name but a few of the most obvious.

14 Shaped Canvas, Combine, Arte Povera, Pop-Art, Conceptualism, Performance, Situationism, Installation, Intermedia, Fluxus, Land Art etc.

15 McEvilley claim is made for Conceptualism, yet as a post-medium movement could similarly be applied to a post-medium condition.

16 Although the argument is made on ‘received ideas about painting’ it can be likewise transposed onto a wider argument about the nature of the progression via negation within all medium-specificity.

17 As in Kosuth’s statement in Krauss’s Voyage on the North Sea that ‘being an artist now means the question the nature of art (my emphasis)’ (p. 10)

18 This is also characterized by Jan Verwoert in a comparison and association between Duchamp’s relationship to chess and his ‘strategic move’ (Verwoert, 2005). Duchamp speaking in The Shock of the New about his, predetermined, liminal rationalizations of The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even, 1915-1923; “It was nothing spontaneous about it. Which of course is a great objection on the part of aestheticians. They want the subconscious to speak by itself, I don’t (sic)” (Duchamp, 1980, Ep.1 51:15mins).

19 I should corroborate that negating the category ‘contingent truth’ does not infer the status of a necessary truth. The provisional act does not attempt to claim status as a truth unlike the declarative act, ‘provisionality’ suggests this.

20 The most radical example can be identified in the work of Peter Soriano (see Fig. 12) Bibliography (excerpt) Berger, P., (1977) Facing Up to Modernity. New York: Basic Books. Bernstein, J.M., (1992) ‘The fate of art: aesthetic alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno’, Cambridge: Polity Press. Bernstein, P., (1984) ‘Theory of the Avant-Garde’, vol 4. Manchester: Manchester University Press Bois, Y-A., (1990) ‘Painting: The Task of Mourning’, in Painting as Model. Cambridge; MIT Press Buchloh, H.D.B., (2003) Neo-avantgarde and Culture Industry: Essays on European and American Art from 1955 to 1975, MIT Press. Burger, P., (1992) ‘The decline of Modernism’, Cambridge: Polity Press. ClarkeArtInstitute., (2012) Theodore Triandos - Art, Theory, and the Critique of Ideology. [Internet]. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5QZ1AMiqbA> [Accessed 23 September 2014]. Danto, A,C., (1997) ‘After the end of art: contemporary art and the pale of history’, USA: Prinston University Press Danto A.C., (1992) Beyond the Brillo Box. University of California Press Derby, M., (2013) Visualizing Painting: A Space Drawn in ration, [Internet]. Available from: <http://www.research.ucreative.ac.uk/1687/1/Visualising_Painting_-_a_space_drawn_in_ratio.pdf> [Accessed 26 November 2014] Foster, H., (1996) ‘The return of the real’, Cambridge, MA, and London; MIT Press Greenberg, C., (1940) ‘Towards a Newer Laocoon, in Partisan Review, Vol no. 4, July-August 1940. Greenhalgh. P., (2005) The Modern Ideal. London; V&A Publications Haddad, N., (2010) Portraits, abstraction and missing pieces; hobbits, systems and Syd Barrett Frieze. Issue 134 October 2010. Harrison, C., (2001) Conceptual Art & Painting: Further Essays on Art & Language, Cambridge, MA Harry Lehmann., (2014) Avant garde Today - A Historical Model of the Modern Arts (H27arry Lehmann) [Internet]. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2QkwZELXzg> [Accessed 23 September 2014]. Kosuth, J., (2009) ‘The Language of Equilibrium’, Verona; Mondadori Electa S.P.A Krauss, R., (1999) ‘A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition’, London: Thames & Hudson Krauss, R., (1972) ‘A View of Modernism’, Artforum, September, Krauss, R., (1977) ‘Notes on the Index’, pt 1. in Krauss, 1986 Krauss, R., (1979) ‘Sculpture in the Expanded Field’, October, Vol. 8, Spring Lawson, T., (1981) 'Last Exit Painting', Artforum, October, pp. 143-155. Lewis, W., (1954) ‘The demon of progress in the arts’, Great Britain: Butler and Tanner ltd. LeWitt, S., (1967) ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’, in de Vries, 1974 LeWitt, S., (1969) ‘Sentences on Conceptual Art’, in de Vries, 1974 Lippard. L., (1969) ‘As Painting is to Sculpture: A changing Ratio’, in Lippard, L: American Sculpture of the Sixties, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Lippard, L., (1973) ‘Six Years: the Dematerialization of the Art Object’, London and New York Masheck, J., (1975) Chance is Zee Fool’s Name for Fail; Marcel Duchamp in perspective, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall) Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945) Cézanne’s Doubt. McEvilley, T., (2005) The Triumph of anti-art: Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post-modernism, New York: McPherson & Company North, M., (2013) ‘Novelty: A History of the New’. The University of Chicago Press Rosenberg, H., (1962) ‘The Tradition of the New’, London and New York: Thames & Hudson Stepanova, V., (1921) ‘Lecture on Constructivism’, 22nd Dec, in Noever, P. Aleksandr M. Rodchenko, Stepanova V. The future is our goal. Munich: Prestel, 1991, pp. 174-178 Tuttle, R., (2014) Richard Tuttle: I don’t know or the weave of textile language. London: Whitechapel Gallery. 14 October - 14 December 2014 Verwoert, J., (2005) ‘Why are Conceptual Artists Painting Again? Because They Think It’s a Good Idea’, Afterall. Autumn/Winter, vol 12, pp,14-16

Fig. 1 Richard Tuttle, 1965, Drift I. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/richard-tuttle-drift-i-5739624-details.aspx> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 2 Richard Tuttle, 1965, Drift III. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/proyen/proyen9-28-05_detail.asp?picnum=2> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 3 Richard Tuttle, 1965, Green Triptych. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/richard-tuttle-green-triptych-5496707-details.aspx2> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 4 Richard Tuttle, 1965, Wave. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.wikiart.org/en/richard-tuttle/wave-19652> [a November 13]

Fig. 5 Richard Tuttle, 1964, Sum Confluence. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.wikiart.org/en/richard-tuttle/sum-confluence-19642> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 6 Richard Tuttle, 1965, Fountain. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/proyen/proyen9-28-05_detail.asp?picnum=3> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 7 Richard Tuttle, 1965, Wave. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.wikiart.org/en/richard-tuttle/water-1965> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 8 Cheryl Donegan, 2013, Untitled (beige and rose) [Online Image] Available at <http://cheryldonegan.com/2012-2013/view> [Accessed November 28]

Fig. 9 Richard Aldrich, 2008, If I Paint Crowned I’ve Had it, Got Me?. [Online Image] Available at <http:/newamericanpaintings.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/richard-aldrich-at-sfmoma> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 10 Richard Aldrich, 2008, Looking with Mirror Apparatus. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/provisional-painting-raphael-rubinstein/#slideshow-9> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 11 Michael Krebber, 2001, Contempt for one’s own work as planning for career. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/provisional-painting-raphael-rubinstein/#slideshow-5> [Accessed November 13]

Fig. 11 Michael Krebber, 2001, Contempt for one’s own work as planning for career. [Online Image] Available at <http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/provisional-painting-raphael-rubinstein/#slideshow-5> [Accessed November 13]