Bachelors

October Books

by Rosalind E. Krauss

These essays on nine women artists are framed by the question, born of feminism, "What evaluative criteria can be applied to women's art?"

Since the 1970s Rosalind Krauss has been exploring the art of painters, sculptors, and photographers, examining the intersection of these artists concerns with the major currents of postwar visual culture: the question of the commodity, the status of the subject, issues of representation and abstraction, and the viability of individual media.

These essays on nine women artists are framed by the question, born of feminism, "What evaluative criteria can be applied to women's art?" In the case of surrealism, in particular, some have claimed that surrealist women artists must either redraw the lines of their practice or participate in the movement's misogyny. Krauss resists that claim, for these "bachelors" are artists whose expressive strategies challenge the very ideals of unity and mastery identified with masculinist aesthetics. Some of this work, such as the "part object" (Louise Bourgeois) or the "formless" (Cindy Sherman) could be said to find its power in strategies associated with such concepts as ecriture feminine. In the work of Agnes Martin, Eva Hesse, or Sherrie Levine, one can make the case that the power of the work can be revealed only by recourse to another type of logic altogether. Bachelors attempts to do justice to these and other artists (Claude Cahun, Dora Maar, Louise Lawler, Francesca Woodman) in the terms their works demand.

Genres: Art, Theory, Nonfiction

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

American art critic, professor, and theorist who is based at Columbia University, teaching Modern Art and Theory.

Reviews

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once you read Krauss you never view art the same way you used to. Although she's the first art critic I've read, I can tell that reading her is a transforming experience. This book shows how there are so many female artists who are "events", artists who have transgressed art, shaped how one would view a photograph, a painting, a grid, a sculpture. For me as a person who's still new to this world, this book changed the way I look at everything.

[Maura Brewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great essay on Cindy Sherman and the unconscious in this book... worht reading just for that. This book is all Krauss's essays on female artists, sort of her attempt to seem feminist. She's not really the most convincing feminist, many of her ideas involve comparing women artist to more successful male artists as a means of legitimizing their work.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

You wish you could write like her (and get away with it).

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

I hate you but I love you.

[Danilo Howat]

Cindy Sherman: mãe