The Shiny Illusionism of Krauss and Judd - David Raskin
The contested ‘content’ of Donalds Judd’s minimalists work as critiqued by Rosalind Krauss and subsequently refuted by Judd himself, is the subject of David Raskins 2006 Article ‘The Shiny Illusionism of Krauss and Judd’. He discusses both the fourteen occasions on which Krauss wrote on the operations of Judd’s work across a 38 year period, as well as Judd’s opposing view, which was never an outright but as Raskin suggests an indirect rejection of her readings based on his descriptions (or indeed, ‘clarifications’) of his practise at various points in his career.
There appear to be ten significant points of tension that Raskin raises as the opposing polemics of Judd and Krauss. I am interested however to look at the last argument that Raskin discusses and how this seems to encapsulate the key difference in their standpoints, under which the prior divergences appear to fall.
In the latter part of his article Raskin compares and contrasts the differing ontological and epistemic views of Judd and Krauss. Raskin proposes that Krauss holds a subjective view of ontological knowledge, and that Judd has an objective ontology. However on epistemic terms their positions are reversed. Krauss had an objective view of epistemology, whereas Judd perceived epistemological ground as subjective.
In these definitions he seeks to clarify the difference in opinion over the nature of knowledge. For Judd the object was factual but its meanings and our knowledge of it was contingent, never bracketed off from uncertainty or from our questions about the world. Whereas for Krauss there is no factual object, it was only known under subjective terms – in a sense the object was socially constructed- and that ‘things’ as they surfaced through the ‘self’ were always, unarguably, subject to external determination.
Where Raskin supposes there are different places where objective and subjective positions can be applied, Peter Galison analysis of scientific methods suggests that perhaps objectivity and subjectivity are less oppositional than intimately bound.
Scientist Peter Galison in an article titled ‘Objectivity is Romantic’ looks at the case study of scientific pictorial atlases for an example of epistemic knowledge as compiled in visual form. By analysing different methods of data recording, Galison examines how evolving taxonomic systems propose quite differing versions of what objective values could be considered to be in a scientific realm, illustrating just how subjective scientific objectivity can be. He examines three different models for structuring these pictorial atlases as objective documents, and in doing so unveils how in each of the three models ‘the epistemic, procedural and moral are inextricably linked’.
In the 1820’s ‘Genial Depiction’ was employed as a method to select samples as representational types, for example: human body, plants, cloud formations, etc. As a procedure, genial depiction required substantial intervention and interpretation. An idealized type was sought to represent a group as a whole. These were frequently hand drawn, requiring the selection and depiction of an archetype, and often carried the tones of authorship. The 1830’s saw a complete inversion of this method with the advent of ‘Mechanical Objectivity’ - where personal interpretation is rejected for instead an automated system beyond the influence of the artist’s hand. (categories will still need to be determined?) This was in turn surpassed around the 1920’s in favour of ‘Judgemental Objectivity’ when it was admitted that the trained eye was actually more effective and efficient in sorting phenomena for useful application.
Each pictorial regime relies on the specific relationship between a practical method of recording, an ontological question and viewpoint, as well as the role of an author. In terms of the ontological questions, the ‘ideal’ can be seen as a moving target in relation to given concerns of the time. Galison also describes the shifting status of the author as moving from genius (Genial Descriptions), to detached supervisor (Mechanical Objectivity), to trained consultant (Judgemental Objectivity).
Galison’s article presents this historical analysis without substantial philosophical positioning, although there is a subtle suggestion of a kind of false opposition between objectivity and subjectivity. The suggestion seems to be whether it is possible to view methods of subjective judgement and structural systems as irreducible from one another? This could manifest itself both in the role of the author who always has a role in shaping the data no matter how passive or active that role might be, or how the judgement is applied. As well as this are the cultural preconditions determining the selection procedures and nature of the ontological enquiry. Although he doesn’t go so far as proposing a middle ground – I think this could be possible – in relation to the discussion of Derrida’s procedure of deconstruction, and Galisons attempts to loosen oppositional dichotomies.
In Raskin’s article he utilizes the diachotomies of objectivity and subjectivity, and how in alternating spheres they are applied differently in the positions of Judd and Krauss, which is helpful to a certain point. It aids in understanding the core of their disagreement. And on which terms they held concrete views. However it does make finding a middle ground difficult. It only seems possible to view them in opposite corners of the ring, and as a reader having to pick a certain side. Raskin’s leaning leads us closer to Judd than to Krauss which puts his opening quote about the ‘two faces of a fact’ into doubt. I think considerations of objectivity and subjectivity are extended further in Galison’s analysis of scientific pictorialism, where ideas of subjectivity and objectivity are more integrated and move in and out of one another. What resonates for me with Galison’s analysis is how for him objectivity in science is not paramount with the truth, or with accuracy. More it is culturally conditioned, morally bound and –most importantly - subjectively applied.
REFERENCES TO COME.
