A Critique of Fried's Understanding of Theatricality in "Art and Objecthood"

Jeffrey W. Salyer

《小說與戲劇》 18卷2期 (2008/03) Pp. 53-77

並列摘要

Michael Fried's charge in ”Art and Objecthood” (1967), that minimalist objects are essentially theatrical and that therefore they cannot properly be regarded as art, has generated much controversy. To counter his argument, Fried's critics have contested the status he ascribes to minimalist works, pointing to various developments in twentieth-century sculpture, evaluating the role and worth of theater in conjunction with other arts, and emphasizing the essentially political intervention, in the form of ideology critique, underpinning many minimalist artists' works. Fried's opponents, however, as a body have had little to say about how the terms drama and theater are actually used in the essay. In this paper I contend that Fried's usage is imprecise, and that this imprecision threatens the integrity of his argument or at the least casts new light upon it. I approach this problem by employing the work of two critics, Peter Szondi (Theory of the Modern Drama) and Peter Bürger (Theory of the Avant-Garde and The Decline of Modernism) to help define the limits of Fried's usage. First, I argue that Fried conflates two notions of drama, by confusing the idea of the Drama (Szondi's definition) which comprises certain traits best understood as an absoluteness or self-sufficiency coupled with conventions associated with theater as an institution from the Elizabethan stage to the beginnings of Realism with what we may call the post-Dramatic situation following Szondi's understanding of the crisis initiated by Ibsen and other key transitional figures. I define the historical poles as a certain reception of Aristotle on the one hand and the self-conscious schematicization of technique in Freytag. I argue in light of this discussion that Fried's lack of precision leads us to understand our subjective response to Anthony Caro as Dramatic whereas the response to minimalist sculpture would be post-Dramatic. The second part of the argument concerns the inadequate concern with the function of an institutional frame. This, too, can be related to developments within the period of the Drama as a tension between institutional control and individual works (and playwrights). Bürger's explication of this problem in the context of the doctrine classique (”Literary Institution and Modernization”) concretizes Szondi's theoretical formulation in an historical example by illustrating the dialectic of form and content in concrete terms. I conclude that Fried's use of the conventions of one genre to critique another is methodologically valid, but only inasmuch as he deploys the terms drama, theater, and theatrical in more precise and historically-sensitive ways.

並列關鍵字

Michael Fried ； objecthood ； minimalism ； institution

參考文獻

Adams, Hazard(Ed.),Butcher, S. H.(Trans.)(1971).Critical Theory since Plato.San Diego:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Artaud, Antonin,Richards, Mary Caroline(Trans.)(1958).The Theater and Its Double.New York:Grove.

Berger, John(2001).Selected Essays.New York:Pantheon.

Buchloh, Benjamin,Foster, Hal(Ed.)(2000).Richard Serra.Cambridge:MIT.

Bürger, Peter,Walker, Nicholas(Trans.)(1992).The Decline of Modernism.University Park:Pennsylvania State UP.