On the New

by Boris Groys

On the New looks at the economies of exchange and valuation that drive modern culture's key the intellectual marketplace and the archive. As ideas move from one context to another, newness is created. This continuous shifting of the line that separates the valuable from the worthless, culture from profanity, is at the center of Boris Groys's investigation which aims to map the uncharted territory of what constitutes artistic innovation and what processes underpin its recognition and appropriation.

Genres: Art, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 1995

About the author

Boris Efimovich Groys (born 19 March 1947) is an art critic, media theorist, and philosopher. He is currently a Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University and Senior Research Fellow at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe, Germany. He has been a professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design/Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe and an internationally acclaimed Professor at a number of universities in the United States and Europe, including the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California and the Courtauld Institute of Art London.

Reviews

[Alex Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Groys is a formalist. He recasts the dialectic of subject and object in terms of valorized-profane in order to talk about the production of culture. Through the figure of art (and then conceptual theory), Groys notes the production of new as necessary to stablize the meta-position of culture. He makes these positions independent of specific content and that makes him not only a formalist but also an idealist.

One of the issues with this, is that this ideation remain ungrounded in material practices, that valorization and the profane are "indistinguishable". Perhaps this makes him a lazy philosopher, but it's unwelcome since the very ability for one to distinguish the two is the entire point of valorization. A stronger critique of this thought would be to say that all that we can recognize is already included in culture, and that what isn't in culture is only recognizable through the filter of culture, so it is "not yet itself", which begs the question of schema.

At first glance I thought he was going to outline a scheme of becoming. Umberto Eco did so in order to talk about how new information can create new categories for the new, but Groys avoided doing this difficult task. Instead he retreated into the familiar dialectical play of cultural difference to pull the new from the auspices of the void... this puts him strictly within the history of formalization as outlined in Foucault's The Order of Things, wherein the question today becomes how can one pull content from form alone? The appeal to the void (or the Other of thought) or the attempt to think the unthinkable isn't a new attempt. Groys puts forth a well researched and tightly knit but conservative book. In this sense, he is pretty easy to read, and serves more as a text for a sophomore for an aesthetic reading of familiar forms instead of as an earth shaking opus.

[Amirhossein Zarifian]

ثقیل‌ترین کتابی بود که از گرویس خوندم. به نوعی جمع‌آوری همه‌ی کتاب‌های قبلیش هم بود و یک راهنماست برای درک موقعیت اجتماعی و چگونگی ساختن یا اصلا میسر بودن ساخت چیز جدید توسط هنرمند. این سوال مهم که دیگران همه‌ی کار‌ها رو کردند و در عصر حاضر چه چیزی نو محسوب میشه. چگونه می‌شه در زمینه‌ی هنری نوآوری کرد و اصلا چیز نویی وجود داره یا خیر

[Virga · Rating 2 out of 5]

Labai vertinga knyga meno teoretikams, ypač šiuolaikiniams ar labai save šiuolaikiniais laikantiems. T.y. galvojantiems labiau apie meno Vertę kaip tokią, apie Inovacijas ir jų kilmę, o ne apie atskiro kūrinio įdomumą ir patrauklumą. Tai ne man, žodžiu, sorry. Man buvo nuoboooodu ir vis laukiau kokio įdomesnio pavyzdžio, nebe iš dada ir duchampo, bet kad matyt vibracijų dažnis, kaip uspaskis sako, ne tas, ir nesulaukiau.

[efe feffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

baslik cok iddiali icerik kafa aciyor

[Víctor Hugo Magallón · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sobre lo nuevo: Ensayo de una economía cultural, es un libro que considero de cabecera para todo aquél le interesa la teoría y la filosofía del arte .

Compuesto por varios ensayos, donde la tesis principal es dar cuenta como el arte se transmuta para ser valorado como tal, es decir, cómo un elemento profano llega a ser reconocido como algo cultural sin necesidad de que sea propiamente novedoso.

Tengo que decir que no es un libro fácil, de hecho me resultó un poco pesado varios de los ensayos. Sobre todo considero que para adentrarte a esta obra debes de tener revisados algunos teóricos y filósofos del arte, ya que Boris Groys echa mano de algunos conceptos que si no sabes de lo que habla lo dejaras inconcluso en el primer capítulo, igual que tú Ulises de James Joyce, que mejor pata de cama no podrías haber encontrado.

RECOMENDABLE SI:
- Quieres saber porque el urinario de Duchamp esta en un museo y tú pintura hiperrealista no.

- Te interesa la teoría del arte aunque sepas que solo sirve para poder platicar en las fiestas de los intelectuales y artistas.

- Quieres saber porque diablos el audio de: "ya llegaron sus ricos tamales oaxaqueños", es una expresión altamente valorada actualmente.

[Shane · Rating 2 out of 5]

A theoretical book on the idea of 'new' in art is something that is ironically not very new anymore. Written in the early 1990s (like many books on this topic), the theories here have been surpassed but there is still value in some arguments on the idea of how value is applied to new artistic objects, unfortunately using tried-and-tested art examples like Cindy Sherman and Marcel Duchamps. The book does not rely on jargon, but the writing style is difficult at times; I enjoyed the structure and some of the arguments, but got little enjoyment from reading Groys' book. His recent papers on technology-led art are much more enjoyable and extremely interesting.

[Lucas Pandolfo · Rating 5 out of 5]

good stuff

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can read my views on Groys in New Left Review 56, March-April 2009.