On Fried’s Art & Objecthood
2024


For Fried, the central distinction between what he terms “literalist” art versus modernist art exists in their respective responses to objecthood. Objecthood is here defined as the condition of non-art. Thus, art must be defined as the condition of non-objecthood. Art, or more specifically, painting’s designation as object or non-object had never been brought into question until the 1960s, at which point the development of modernist painting allowed some paintings to seem more nearly assimilable to objects. From Manet’s work onwards, this development falsely presented itself as the progressive discovery of an objecthood essential to art. For Fried, however, objecthood is not a convention that constitutes the essence of art but rather lies in direct contradiction to it. It is instead pictorialism, the relational or syntactical arrangement of non-literal images onto a two-dimensional surface, that constitutes painting’s essence. The pictorial is essential to painting, yet the illusion of objecthood as essential to painting gained credence. Thus, a crisis emerged regarding the essence of art – a crisis inextricably intertwined with objecthood: does the beholder experience a work as an object or as art? This question becomes the basis of the distinction between modernist sensibility as opposed to literalist sensibility. Modernism responds to this question by making explicit art’s pictorial essence, defeating or suspending its objecthood in so doing. It leans into its own conventions or essences to prove itself as art, not object. Conversely, by responding to the same essential problem in theatrical terms, literalism embraces objecthood, disposing of the pictorial. This espousal of objecthood in art is not a development within art but is the solicitation of a new genre of theatre. Theatre is here defined as the negation of art through a specific interest in the actual circumstances in which the beholder encounters the work. This, of course, holds true for traditional theatre, wherein the experience plays out durationally for a beholder or audience. It depends on a relationship between the work and its beholder, it is only complete when experienced by an audience. The same is not true for art. The modernist work of art is complete through its own internal relationships or syntaxes. All that constitutes the modernist work of art is intrinsic, appearing as the relationships that exist between formal elements. The same cannot be said of literalist artworks, as literalist ideology demands wholism, rejecting relationships of parts within the work. This is because literalists, like Judd or Morrison, believe parts must be subordinate to unity, creating a definite whole with few or no definite parts. Literalism advocates for the singleness of the Specific Object, avoiding internal relationships between parts, thus presenting the work as one thing. In rendering the work a definite whole, literalism disposes of the internal parts of a work. This means that no internal relations can exist intrinsically to literalist art. Instead, the relations become extrinsic. The extrinsic relationship of the beholder to the work becomes the central relationship of literalist art which disavows intrinsic formal relationships. This ideology lends itself to theatre, not to art, as it comes to exist for a beholder to experience it, rather than existing in itself. Literalist theatricality thus depends on the unity of the work, as this is how it does away with internal relationships, prioritizing the external relationship with the beholder. This unity, in turn, depends on shape. Unitary forms, such as Morris’s, cannot be understood as anything other than a single shape. It is the singleness of shape that secures the work as an object. Thus, shape becomes, if not an object, an essential property of objecthood in literalist theory. As literalism’s vital distinction from modernism is in its embrace of objecthood, shape is of vital concern. In response to the question of a work being experienced as object or art, in combination with shape’s intertwinement with objecthood, art’s success was thus partially defined by its ability to either hold shape, stamp shape out, or become shape. This is because a conflict exists between shape as a medium of art versus shape as a property of objects. When the critical question for art became its objecthood or non-objecthood, the role of shape became paramount. Modernist painting embraced the conventional shape of painting, the rectangular canvas, embracing pictorial essence, embracing two-dimensionality, emphasizing the shape that conventionally belongs to painting. Literalism, however, viewed the rectangular surface as exhaustible if not already exhausted. There are a finite number of ways to organize the surface of a picture. These organizations, as they all work within the same confines of rectangular shape and two-dimensionality, prioritize internal relationships of parts, de-emphasizing the wholism of the shape, creating intrinsic syntactical relations rather than extrinsic beholder/work relations. Thus, conversely, in its espousal of objecthood, literalism embraces non-rectangular, non-two-dimensional shapes, thereby rejecting the canvas. As objecthood has been defined as the condition of non-art, the aesthetic of non-art helps to secure the work’s status as an object. The typical association between art and the rectangular canvas is thus incompatible with literalist non-art aesthetics, rendering the rectangular canvas incompatible with objecthood. Fried cites Greenberg’s idea that a stretched canvas is already a picture, thereby asserting the deep association the two-dimensional surface has with the look of art. As such, literalist art cannot exist on a purely two-dimensional surface but must enter the three-dimensional plane in its mission to embrace objecthood and the aesthetic of non-art. This non-art visuality is a crucial tool in the literalist evocation of presence. Presence here is the quality belonging to a work of art when it demands the beholder take it into account as something serious. Literalist presence exists when that demand can be fulfilled simply by the beholder becoming aware of this demand, thus acting in accordance with the demand. Greenberg’s accusation is here cited that certain literalist works, including those of Judd, Morris, and Steiner, hide behind presence. This too is a manifestation of literalism’s concern with the beholder. Without intrinsic, formal relationships, the literalist work needs its beholder to experience this presence, a presence that by definition only exists in relation to an external beholder. Literalism creates a situation in which presence may be effected, one where the object is the focus of attention, but the situation actually belongs to the beholder. It is up to the beholder to act in accordance with literalist presence. Therefore, though he acts in response to the stimulus of the object, as only he can meet the demand of presence, the beholder feels himself to be experiencing something just for himself. In a sense, he is. The literalist work, in its theatricality, exists for a beholder, is incomplete without one. The literalist work awaits its beholder, lurking in a quiet room of a contemporary gallery, begging to let it confront you with its presence. The experience of walking in on a literalist work is, for Fried, an unnerving experience. The work is there waiting, desperate to form an extrinsic relationship with the unsuspecting onlooker, daring the spectator to take it seriously. This unsettling quality of literalist works is owed to a certain latent anthropomorphism at the heart of literalist theory. There is a certain hollowness attributed to literalist objects, they take on the quality of having an inside, thus of having an inner life. This internality, like the literalist ideal of non-relational, unitary wholism, is a trait most naturally belonging to other persons. We view persons not as fragmentary assemblages of parts in internal relationships, but as single, inseparable, unitary wholes. This is the same mode in which literalism asks to be viewed, already implying a certain human-like quality in literalist works. This is rendered more essential to literalism through notions of scale. Scale plays a vital role in literalism. Scale, however, is not here a synonym for size, but rather references the space between object and beholder through the relation of the object’s size to the beholder’s body size. Smith’s Die, a six-foot ominous cube, stands at a height comparable to the human body, prompting his assertion that Die is neither a monument nor an object. Though this essay may disagree with Smith’s assertion of non-objecthood, Fried asserts a statuesque quality in Smith’s cube. Die becomes a surrogate person through the medium of scale. Scale is essential to literalism as a means of distancing the beholder from the work, thereby extending the situation in which the beholder encounters the object. This is, in part, due to the simple fact that the larger something is, the more physical distance is needed for the beholder to see the entire work. Literalist scale thus demands a particular physical distance of optical appraisal, one that inherently distances the beholder from the object. The distance thus creates a more extended situation because it requires physical participation, creating a space from the object to its beholding subject. This distancing is how the beholder becomes a subject, becomes subject to the object, as the distance is felt not only physically, but psychically. The combination of scale and unitary wholism, so central to the literalist ideology, is how the beholder becomes the subject. This anthropomorphic work has been waiting to play out experientially for its subject. Though the object is the focus of the situation, the situation belongs to the subject, the subject’s experience is the true content of literalist theatre. It is only in the subject’s experience that presence can be effected, it is only in the subject’s experience that any relationship with a unitary whole form can exist. Like theatre, but unlike art, the object exists for its subject, who recognizes himself as subject through the physical and psychical distance effected by the scale of the literalist non-relational whole. Thus, literalist anthropomorphism reiterates itself, asking the beholder to enter a subjective relationship with a unitary entity of scale comparable to their own body. This is not how we relate to artworks, but is exactly how we relate to people. Thus, literalist presence is more like stage presence, a quality attributed to human actors. This is due not only to the anthropomorphic quality of the literalist work, but to the special complicity elicited from the beholder. The beholder, as already detailed, acts in accordance with the object, meets the demands of the work. This too is a mode of subjective distancing, as the beholder finds himself in an indeterminate relation as subject to the inscrutable object confronting him. We relate to theatre as subjects of the theatrical experience do, thereby lending literalism to theatricality, positioning literalism in opposition to art, as theatre is here art’s negation. Much like the experience of theatrical viewing, literalist viewing becomes an experience that necessarily involves the entire environment, light, space, body. The subject’s entire field of vision is part of this experience. The literalist thus desires control over the entire situation, the size of the room, the direction of light. Everything counts, not as part of the object, but as part of the experience. This evinces a vital mode of theatricality and not artistry. It is not the object in itself that the beholder views, it is the entire situation that the subject experiences. The experience exists for him as subject, as theatre does, not in itself, as art does. When everything counts, the import of the work itself is diminished. Literalism is not about the work, it is about the experience of the work in a situation where everything counts, belonging to the subjectivized beholder. Experience is essential to literalism. The literalist object only exists to be in a room effecting experience for the subject. The object seems to have no intrinsic value, its only purpose is the creation of subjective experience. Thus, Tony Smith’s experience of driving on the unfinished New Jersey turnpike at night exemplifies literalist theatricality. Smith found a way to drive onto the turnpike before its construction had been completed, before lights, guardrails, or road signs were installed. While driving along this dark, empty, indeterminate road, Smith experienced the death of art, understanding that he had no way to frame his profound experience of endlessness in pictorial terms. His turnpike experience showed him a certain endlessness that art never had, and the pictorial convention of painting could not, for Smith, capture his experience. He could not make sense of it in terms of art, he could not make art of it, he could not frame it in the pictorial illusion of the two-dimensional rectangle. Rather than viewing this as a discovery of painting’s essence as pictorial essence, Smith viewed this as the end of all art, deciding that the pictorial convention was too limited to express his profound experience of endlessness. He needed the experience to exist as is, as it happens naturally, as it merely is. For Smith and his fellow literalists, only experience matters. This speaks not only to an acute theatricality in literalism but proves the unimportance of the literalist object in literalist ideology. Smith’s drive along the turnpike was a literalist work without the object, leaving the true work of literalism: experience. Smith’s experience reveals that the more effective as theatre the setting is, the less important the object becomes. How then, without the object, does the beholder become a subject in this objectless theatrical experience? If literalism depends on the subject/object, beholder/work relationship to create a situation, what renders the beholder subject, what allows an experience to occur? Smith’s turnpike drive reveals objectlessness, endlessness, the perpetual onrush of perspective to be the medium of physically objectless subject formation within literalist experience. The endlessness of experience becomes the object of literalism, rendering the actual physical object superfluous in the face of experience. This reveals literalism not only as something other than art, but in fact, as an ideology with a heartfelt hostility towards the arts, depending not on the work, but on that which replaces the absent object. This exhibits what Fried calls the theatricality of objecthood. Theatricality is explicitly concerned with the actual circumstances in which the beholder encounters the work. The theatricality of objecthood is therefore the object’s concern not with itself, but with the actual circumstances it sets up for the subject to experience. This is how literalist experience can function without the literalist object, because it prioritizes the actual circumstances of experience over the work. This is not the purview of art, where the work has no concern for its actual, physical circumstances, but of theatre, where the work is entirely concerned with the actual, physical circumstances. These physical circumstances are not only spatial, but temporal. As implied by the endlessness of Smith’s turnpike theatre, experience inherently plays out in time. His night drive could not be understood instantaneously, it had to transpire temporally. This too accounts for Smith’s inability to frame this experience in the pictorial convention essential to art, the inability that made him proclaim the death of art. Experience is too deeply intertwined with time to be represented in a medium that is not durational. Experience is, simply, durational. One cannot have an experience atemporally or instantaneously, it is something that unfolds in time. Time is the medium of theatre, not of art. Theatre must play out in time, this is inherent to its form and obvious to any reader. Theatre has duration, it practices linear time, the experience progresses through temporality in traditional or literalist theatre. The same is simply not true of modernist artworks. Modernist work is not exactly atemporal or outside of time, but it certainly is not durational. Instead, the modernist work perpetually creates itself, it is renewed in every instant, at every single moment it is wholly present. Though a beholder may spend long hours viewing the modernist painting, the painting does not play out in time. It is eternally instantaneous, perpetually present. This presence is not the same as literalist presence, where a demand is made by the object for the subject to fulfill by acting in accordance. Instead, it is a true presence, a whole, complete existence in the instantaneous present moment, eliciting a sense of complete self-creation in every renewed second. Modernist painting is present non-durationally. It makes no temporal, experiential, theatrical demands of its beholding subject. It exists in a state of genuine presence that does not play out in time nor space, but simply in itself. Theatre needs time, modernist art does not. This is precisely how modernism overcomes theatricality, just as it is precisely how literalism succumbs to theatricality. Literalism is endless, inexhaustible in time. This is not, as Fried scathingly notes, because of the fullness of literalist works, but because there is simply nothing there to exhaust. The literalist object is not inexhaustible due to fullness or richness, but because the literalist content is the duration of a subject/object experience. The literalist work thus isolates the beholder, confronting him with the endlessness of time as he perceives the work from his standpoint, seeing time stretch behind him, in front of him, around him. Time is apprehended infinitely for the literalist subject, not instantly as it is for the modernist beholder. As Smith's turnpike reveals, literalism depends on endlessness, objectlessness, the onrush of infinitude. The object is disposable, but the temporal experience effected by the theatricality of objecthood is vital. One cannot exhaust endlessness, as endlessness is, simply, endless. The particular concern that literalism has for the actual circumstances of its being beheld lends itself to experiential theatre, distances the beholder from the object, rendering them subject, creating an external relationship in space, unfolding in infinite time. These are the characteristics of theatre. These are, therefore, characteristics of the negation of art. As such, the modernist imperative to defeat objecthood is revealed to be the imperative to defeat theatricality. This reveals Fried’s claim that the theatrical is at war with not only the pictorial but with all art, all modernist sensibility. Theatre, as Fried uses the term, is the negation of art. This claim manifests even in traditional stage theatre. The works of Brecht, Artaud, or those who descend from their theatrical lineages, strive to defeat theatricality even in the theatrical form. They establish a new, different, highly particular relationship with their audience. Even in the medium of theatre, which does exist for a beholding audience, theatricality must be defeated to effect artistry. This ability to triumph over theatricality is what determines the success, or even the survival, of the arts. For the modernist sensibility, the defeat of theatre is what defines high art. One art, however, escapes theatre entirely. Cinema is an inherent refuge from theatricality, a curious claim given cinema’s durational nature. This is perhaps because, despite its temporality, the formal apparatus of film defies a subject/object relationship. The film is a self-contained whole that does not necessarily depend on a beholder whom it may render subject. It is the same film whether it is seen or not, or under what circumstances it is seen. The film is not concerned with the actual, physical circumstances in which it is encountered, thus dodging the greedy grasp of theatricality. Cinema’s escape from theatre, however, is not a triumph over theatre. It is only an absorbing refuge, never becoming a true modernist art, as it never defeats theatricality because it never confronts theatricality. Modernism counts something as art when it wins the war against theatricality, and thereby, against objecthood. This triumph can only happen within each work’s own respective form. A painting can overcome theatre as a painting, a poem can overcome it as a poem, but they cannot cross-contaminate. A painting cannot overcome theatre as a poem, nor can the opposite operation occur. To overcome theatricality, each art must uncover its own essential qualities. For modernist painting, that essence is the pictorial illusion of relational parts. Defeating theatricality depends on the uncovering of the particular conventions that constitute the essence of the medium. Without these specialized essences, all arts devolve into theatre. This is because of the illusion that all arts are slipping outside of the conventions that form their own respective essences, falling into one delusively desirable synthesis. This is not the creation of the one true total art but is the embrace of the theatrical. Theatre is the shared quality of a number of disparate activities. It is what distinguishes all those activities from the modernist arts. Thus, theatre is what lies between, outside of, around each art. In this interdisciplinary slipping towards synthesis, the arts all crumble into theatre, losing their own essences in the process. Thus, the arts are not truly synthesizing. Real arts are more concerned than ever with the specific conventions that constitute their own respective essences. If these essences are not the primary concern of the work, the work no longer belongs to its art form, nor is it compatible with modernist sensibility. Instead, the moment the work embraces interdisciplinary synthesis, the work inhabits the space between the arts, the space that is theatre. The distinctions between true arts are being forgotten in the name of false artistic synthesis under theatricality. This is why Fried believes that we are losing our ability to evaluate quality within each art form – because we are losing our ability to distinguish between the actually artistic and the fundamentally theatrical. Beholders appraise works of true art alongside works of theatre, unable to distinguish the two due to this false crumbling towards synthesis, thereby unable to grasp the qualitative differences between the two works. This is exemplified by literalists’ avoidance of questions of value, even seeming uncertain in answering the question of whether or not literalist works are works of art. In literalism, value judgements or appraisals of artistic quality are replaced by the effection of interest. Judd explicitly states that all that matters in the literalist work is its ability to induce and sustain interest. Thus, inherently, all that matters is the experience the object can provide for its subject–the experience of interest. This reiterates the theatricality of objecthood, the literalist concern with the actual circumstances, the durational experience that the object provides for its beholder. The entire enterprise of literalism, its manifestation in the literalist object, thus has very little to do with the object itself, but everything to do with the situational subjective experience of sustained interest. This is theatre, not art. Interest, like theatre, is a durational effect. It lends itself to endlessness, infinitude, it stretches on, it unfurls. Interest drives along the New Jersey turnpike, interest exists between subject and object, interest continues ad infinitum, especially in the inexhaustible objectless endlessness of a literalist theatrical experience. Conversely, conviction – particularly the conviction that the work in question holds its own against works of the same medium whose quality is no longer in question – is instantaneous. Conviction, never interest, is what matters for the modernist arts. Just as the modernist work is perpetually self-creating in every single instant, so too is conviction perpetually renewed in every single instant. There is no endless, empty interest, but instant, full conviction. This conviction, unlike interest, is not a demand the work gives to its beholder, as the work itself does not change in the face of conviction or non-conviction. Conviction is not an experience, it is a perceptive evaluation. Interest is an experience. Interest is the theatrical effect produced by literalist theatrical objecthood, it is the purpose of the literalist object. The literalist work is waiting for a beholder whom it may turn into a subject so that it may elicit interest. The modernist work is never waiting for a beholder, will never turn him into a subject, and never requests he take any interest in the work whatsoever. The modernist work does not exist for a beholder, it exists in itself. Its internal parts create relationships that do not require anything or anyone extrinsic to its two-dimensional rectangular form. It does not need the relationship of interest from its beholder. The beholder can perceive the modernist work as worthy of his conviction, but this is not the goal of the modernist artwork. One takes an interest in something, but one has a conviction about something. ‘In’ here implies that the interest is internal to the experience, as the work exists for the relationship subject has with object. The interest is the point, is between beholder and object, plays out durationally – is theatre. The conviction one has for modernist artworks is purely one’s perceptive judgement, it is not in the work itself. As the work does not exist for a viewer, the work does not change when a viewer holds a conviction about its quality. Only that which is internal to the work counts in modernism, which does not include conviction nor interest. Everything in the entire situation counts in literalism, including the sustained interest of the subject. This reiterates literalism's fundamental theatricality, its durational nature, its utter dependence on a beholder–its incompatibility with the modernist arts or the modernist gift of true presence. This actual presence, as Fried cautions, is fleeting in our lives when compared to the creeping ubiquity of literalist sensibility. This is a sensibility explicitly concerned with actual circumstances, objecthood, experiences, duration, endlessness, objectlessness, the dissolution of particular essences into a theatrical form. This is a sensibility we move towards collectively, a sensibility that corrupts our experience of not only the work of art, but of all reality. The literalist sensibility has turned the whole world into a temporal subject/object relationship where everything counts. We do not understand something in terms of its intrinsic, instantaneous, internal relationships. We understand something in terms of how it relates to us, how we experience it temporally as subjects, how our interest may or may not be elicited. Modernist sensibility is thus a fleeting gift, a spot of grace. Modernist sensibility lets us perceive something as what it is in itself, not what it does for us, not how it relates to setting, not how it plays out in time. Modernist sensibility teaches us conviction, shows us the perpetually instantaneous renewal of self-creation. Though we may be literalists most or all of our lives, as Fried laments, we must cultivate modernist sensibility should we hope to understand anything as itself. We must uncover essence, propagate it in each moment, evaluate it in its own terms. Otherwise, the whole world risks a slippage into empty, theatrical, subjective endlessness.