Michael Fried

Last updated

Michael Martin Fried (born April 12, 1939 in New York City) is a modernist art critic and art historian. He studied at Princeton University and Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford. [1] He is the J.R. Herbert Boone Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Art History at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States. [2]

Contents

Fried's contribution to art historical discourse involved the debate over the origins and development of modernism. Along with Fried, this debate's interlocutors include other theorists and critics such as Clement Greenberg, T. J. Clark, and Rosalind Krauss. From the early 1960s, he was also close to philosopher Stanley Cavell. [3]

Fried was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985 [4] and the American Philosophical Society in 2003. [5]

Early career

Fried describes his early career in the introduction to Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews (1998), an anthology of his art criticism in the 60s and 70s. Although he majored in English at Princeton it was there that he became interested in writing art criticism. While at Princeton he met the artist Frank Stella and through him Walter Darby Bannard. In 1958, he wrote a letter to Clement Greenberg expressing his admiration for his writing and first met him in the Spring of that year. In September 1958, he moved to Oxford, Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, and then to London, England, in 196162, where he studied philosophy part-time at University College London (UCL), under Stuart Hampshire and Richard Wollheim. In 1961 Hilton Kramer offered him the post of London correspondent for the journal Arts. [1] In the fall of 1961, Fried began his friendship with the sculptor Anthony Caro, who invited him to write the introduction to his Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition in 1963.

In 1962 Fried had a short collection of eight poems ("In Other Hands") published by Fantasy Press in Oxford, [6] the first of others to come. In the late summer of that year, he returned to the U.S, where he combined studying for a Ph.D in art history at Harvard with writing art criticism, initially for Art International . In 1965 he curated the exhibition "Three American painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella" at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum.

"Art and Objecthood"

In his essay, "Art and Objecthood," published in 1967, Fried argued that Minimalism's focus on the viewer's experience, rather than the relational properties of the work of art exemplified by modernism, made the work of art indistinguishable from one's general experience of the world. Minimalism (or "literalism" as Fried called it) offered an experience of "theatricality" or "presence" rather than "presentness" (a condition that required continual renewal). The essay inadvertently opened the door to establishing a theoretical basis for Minimalism as a movement based in a conflicting mode of phenomenological experience than the one offered by Fried. [7]

Absorption and Theatricality

In "Art and Objecthood" Fried criticized the "theatricality" of Minimalist art. He introduced the opposing term "absorption" in his 1980 book, Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot. [8] Drawing on Diderot's criticism, [9] Fried argues that whenever a self-consciousness of viewing exists, absorption is compromised, and theatricality results. [10] As well as applying the distinction to 18th-century painting, Fried employs related categories in his art criticism of post-1945 American painting and sculpture. [10] Fried rejects the effort by some critics to conflate his art-critical and art-historical writing. [11]

Fried revisited some of these concerns in Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before (London and New Haven 2008). In a reading of works by prominent art photographers of the last 20 years (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Demand among others) Fried asserted that concerns of anti-theatricality and absorption are central to the turn by contemporary photographers towards large-scale works "for the wall." [12]

Selected bibliography

In more recent years, Fried has written several long and complex histories of modern art, most famously on Édouard Manet, Gustave Courbet, Adolph Menzel, and painting in the late 18th century.

Fried is also a poet, having written The Next Bend in the Road, Powers, To the Center of the Earth, and Promesse du Bonheur.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caravaggio</span> Italian painter (1571–1610)

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of his life, he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modernism</span> Cultural and artistic movement

Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and social issues were all aspects of this movement. Modernism centered around beliefs in a "growing alienation" from prevailing "morality, optimism, and convention" and a desire to change how "human beings in a society interact and live together".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minimalism</span> Movements in various forms of art and design

In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism was an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, and it is most strongly associated with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Installation art</span> Three-dimensional work of art

Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called public art, land art or art intervention; however, the boundaries between these terms overlap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wyndham Lewis</span> English painter and writer (1882–1957)

Percy Wyndham Lewis was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited BLAST, the literary magazine of the Vorticists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art criticism</span> Discussion or evaluation of visual art

Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is questionable whether such criticism can transcend prevailing socio-political circumstances.

<i>Tableau vivant</i> Static scene containing one or more actors or models

A tableau vivant is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrically illuminated. It thus combines aspects of theatre and the visual arts.

<i>Boy Bitten by a Lizard</i> Painting by Caravaggio, c. 1595

Boy Bitten by a Lizard is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. It exists in two versions, both believed to be authentic works of Caravaggio, one in the Fondazione Roberto Longhi in Florence, the other in the National Gallery, London.

Timothy James Clark is a British art historian and writer. He taught art history in a number of universities in England and the United States, including Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley.

Gabriel David Josipovici is a British novelist, short story writer, critic, literary theorist, and playwright. He is an Emeritus professor, after having been Professor at the University of Sussex.

David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University.

Walter Darby Bannard was an American abstract painter and professor of art and art history at the University of Miami.

<i>A Burial at Ornans</i> Painting by Gustave Courbet, 1850–1851

A Burial at Ornans is a painting of 1849–50 by Gustave Courbet. It is widely regarded as a major turning point in 19th-century French art. The painting records a funeral in Courbet's birthplace, the small town of Ornans. It treats an ordinary, provincial funeral with frank realism, and on the grand scale traditionally reserved for the heroic or religious scenes of history painting. Its exhibition at the 1850–51 Paris Salon created an "explosive reaction" and brought Courbet instant fame. It is currently displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France

<i>The Forge</i> (Goya) Painting by Francisco de Goya

The Forge is a c. 1817 painting by Francisco Goya (1746–1828), today housed in the Frick Collection in New York City. The large oil on canvas represents three blacksmiths toiling over an anvil, and has been described by the art historian Fred Licht as "undoubtedly the most complete statement of Goya's late style."

Charles Townsend Harrison was a UK art historian who taught Art History for many years and was Emeritus Professor of History and Theory of Art at the Open University. Although he denied being an artist himself, he was a full participant and catalyst in the Art and Language group.

<i>The Old Musician</i> Painting by Édouard Manet

The Old Musician is an 1862 oil painting on canvas by French painter Édouard Manet, produced during the period when the artist was influenced by Spanish art. The painting also betrays the influence of Gustave Courbet. This work is one of Manet's largest paintings and is now conserved at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Richard E. Spear is an American art historian and professor who specializes in Italian Baroque painting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minimalism (visual arts)</span> Visual arts movement

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially Visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post–World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Minimalism is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and a bridge to postminimal art practices. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Ad Reinhardt, Nassos Daphnis, Tony Smith, Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Larry Bell, Anne Truitt, Yves Klein and Frank Stella. Artists themselves have sometimes reacted against the label due to the negative implication of the work being simplistic.

The Gottschalk Prize is awarded for an outstanding historical or critical study on the 18th century and carries a prize of US$1,000. It is named in honour of Louis Gottschalk (1899–1975), second President of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), President of the American Historical Association, and for many years Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. His scholarship exemplified the humanistic ideals that this award is meant to encourage.

References

  1. 1 2 Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900-1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 513.
  2. "Michael Fried". Comparative Thought and Literature. November 21, 2017. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
  3. Fried, Michael (2011). "Meeting Stanley Cavell" . MLN . 126 (5): 937–942. doi:10.1353/mln.2011.0087. ISSN   0026-7910. JSTOR   41415800.
  4. "Michael Fried". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
  5. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
  6. Ash Rare Books
  7. Hal Foster The Crux of Minimalism, From "The Return of the Real: The Avant-garde at the End of the Century" 1996, MIT Press ISBN   0-262-56107-7
  8. Charles Green, The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism, UNSW Press, p140. ISBN   0-86840-588-4
  9. Toril Moi, Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2006, p114. ISBN   0-19-929587-5
  10. 1 2 Tracy C. Davis, Thomas Postlewait, Theatricality, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p20. ISBN   0-521-01207-4
  11. Michael Fried, Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews, University of Chicago Press, 1998, p73. ISBN   0-226-26319-3
  12. Michael Fried: Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before: London and New Haven, 2008, p14. ISBN   978-0-300-13684-5

Further reading