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October Books
Bachelors
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.
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.
- GenresArtTheoryNonfiction
228 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Rosalind E. Krauss
75 books127 followersAmerican art critic, professor, and theorist who is based at Columbia University, teaching Modern Art and Theory.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 1, 2014
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.
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February 7, 2026Hesse’s work will always draw me in and Krauss’ musings on it made me consider the work even more.
So interesting to focus on Contingent, but makes me think about all the install pieces with “edges” that have followed
So interesting to focus on Contingent, but makes me think about all the install pieces with “edges” that have followed
August 8, 2007
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.
January 9, 2009
You wish you could write like her (and get away with it).
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April 3, 2026specifically Elizabeth bronfens essay: leaving a imprints: Francesco woodmans photographic Tableaux Vivants
essay research notes:
Argues that Peggy phelans reading of franchescas experiments with disappearance in photography as “ understood as a way to rehearse her own death” is reductionist and unproductive
Quote for backing up my para:
In reference to franchesca woodmans work ‘explore the relationship between the staged female body and the likeness that immobilises it’ it continues: ‘both the blurring of the figure in the indervidyal photographs and their thematic seriality draw attention to the constant transformation of the body in the images and as the image.’
Argues that her destruction of her image and self is in fact not a practice for her suicide but a confrontation to the male viewer of her aliveness- her wholeness and her personhood. In order to highlight the dehumanisation of the male gazethat is seen in majority of female nude portraits.
Argues that we must remove franchesca woodman the artist photographer from franchesca woodman as the ‘medium’/photographic object. The artist herself stated that it was not her in the photos instead a ‘character of a young women in various mise-en-scenes’. is it a slap in the face of the artists intentions to disregard this direct statement and instead retroactively decide the meaning was actually about her sucicde?
essay research notes:
Argues that Peggy phelans reading of franchescas experiments with disappearance in photography as “ understood as a way to rehearse her own death” is reductionist and unproductive
Quote for backing up my para:
In reference to franchesca woodmans work ‘explore the relationship between the staged female body and the likeness that immobilises it’ it continues: ‘both the blurring of the figure in the indervidyal photographs and their thematic seriality draw attention to the constant transformation of the body in the images and as the image.’
Argues that her destruction of her image and self is in fact not a practice for her suicide but a confrontation to the male viewer of her aliveness- her wholeness and her personhood. In order to highlight the dehumanisation of the male gazethat is seen in majority of female nude portraits.
Argues that we must remove franchesca woodman the artist photographer from franchesca woodman as the ‘medium’/photographic object. The artist herself stated that it was not her in the photos instead a ‘character of a young women in various mise-en-scenes’. is it a slap in the face of the artists intentions to disregard this direct statement and instead retroactively decide the meaning was actually about her sucicde?
October 14, 2022
4.5
I hate you but I love you.
I hate you but I love you.
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December 28, 2025Cindy Sherman: mãe
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews