ROSALIN D KRAUSS
471
of certain material conditions, but has as well the capacity to be
about
those
conditions,
to
reflect upon them, and in this process of reflection to mirror
the procedures of consciousness. Insofar as it can maintain this position as an
analogue of consciousness, the work of art can place itself at some kind of
tangent to the process by which a society transforms its artifacrs into com–
modities.
Indeed, the problem of outflanking that process runs as a subtext with–
in the recent history of sculprure. Some of the strategies devised by the
sculptors of the past decade-Flavin and Andre among them-were speci–
fically aimed at this question. The use of cheap, debased materials, like fire–
bricks or fluorescent tubes was one such tactic. Another was an increase in
the scale of sculpture beyond the point where it could possibly be housed
for use as p.rivate decoration. Another, that of earthworks, was to locate the
work ourside the reach of private acquisition.
By and large, however, the context demanded by these sculptures is one
of a neutral, unornamented, unobstructed space.
It
is a locale which is in–
tended to stand for "place," in that its dimensions relate
to
human scale,
and irs configuration relates to that commonplace of human habitation: the
room. This place is then asked
to
represent the conditions of space-at-Iarge,
against which these sculptures can establish themselves as a system along–
side that of the world. As analogues of consciousness, which though it is
in
the world and o/the world, is also capable of making propositions
about
the
world, these sculptures are not wholly assimilable to the condition of the
inorganic.
To disrupt the neutrality of that space, to transform it into the network
of the logo-fetish, is to violate the work it might contain. Andre and Flavin,
understanding this, removed their works from
200 Years ofAmerican Sculp–
ture.
For the rest of us, there was nothing to do but "learn from
Las
Vegas."
