Ed Krčma
Address: Art History and World Art Studies,
Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts,
University of East Anglia,
Norwich,
Norfolk,
NR4 7TJ,
UK
Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts,
University of East Anglia,
Norwich,
Norfolk,
NR4 7TJ,
UK
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Developing the idea of ‘compression’, a term borrowed from the analysis of poetry, the article elucidates the ways in which the ‘small sculptures’ open onto some of the most pressing problems for contemporary art: the relationship between art and aesthetic experience after the readymade and conceptualism; the transactions between visual art and literature, and particularly modern poetry; the problem of interpretation, its movements and its limits; and the tense relationship between artistic autonomy and political engagement.
The ‘small sculptures,’ four of which are engaged with closely here, constitute a critique of both the reliance of much contemporary art upon big budgets and spectacular effects, and of the insistence that art directly articulate statements of ideological commitment. Drawing upon theoretical resources developed by Georges Perec, Theodor Adorno and Václav Havel, for example, I articulate the ways in which Büchler’s works possess a strange kind of density, in the manner of a rebus or a riddle. They embody art’s capacity to speak otherwise and demonstrate how much can be done with what is apparently very little indeed.
Developing the idea of ‘compression’, a term borrowed from the analysis of poetry, the article elucidates the ways in which the ‘small sculptures’ open onto some of the most pressing problems for contemporary art: the relationship between art and aesthetic experience after the readymade and conceptualism; the transactions between visual art and literature, and particularly modern poetry; the problem of interpretation, its movements and its limits; and the tense relationship between artistic autonomy and political engagement.
The ‘small sculptures,’ four of which are engaged with closely here, constitute a critique of both the reliance of much contemporary art upon big budgets and spectacular effects, and of the insistence that art directly articulate statements of ideological commitment. Drawing upon theoretical resources developed by Georges Perec, Theodor Adorno and Václav Havel, for example, I articulate the ways in which Büchler’s works possess a strange kind of density, in the manner of a rebus or a riddle. They embody art’s capacity to speak otherwise and demonstrate how much can be done with what is apparently very little indeed.