Art’s Properties

185 Pages·2023·12.057 MB·English

by  David Joselit

Art’s Properties

ART’S
PROPERTIES
DaviD Joselit
Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford
Copyright © 2023 by David Joselit
Princeton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the
intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the progress and
integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting free speech and the global exchange
of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or
distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission.
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work
should be sent to permissions @press .princeton .edu
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Prince ton University Press, 99 Banbury Road, Oxford oX2 6JX
press .princeton .edu
Jacket image: Rendering Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen © 2022 Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Joselit, David, author.
Title: Art’s properties / David Joselit.
Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2023] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lCCN 2022005105 (print) | lCCN 2022005106 (ebook) |
isBN 9780691236049 (hardback) | isBN 9780691236056 (ebook)
Subjects: lCsH: Art—Philosophy.
Classification: lCC N66 .J67 2023 (print) | lCC N66 (ebook) |
DDC 701—dc23/eng/20220720
lC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022005105
lC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022005106
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Book design by Monograph / Matt Avery
This book has been composed in Lyon Regular No. 2,
Mint Grotesk, and Mint Book
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
for my students

Contents
Prologue : : ix
Alienability and Alterity : : 1
Constituent Moments: 1793– 1815 : : 15
Modern Art Was Always Conceptual : : 39
The Burden of Representation : : 77
Witness : : 97
The Object as Witness : : 115
Afterword : : 121
Acknowledgments : : 123
Notes : : 125
Index : : 139
Image Credits : : 148
vii

I don’t know why I don’t just send all my desire forward.
BeNJamiN KrusliN g
Prologue
Museums are photo opportunities. Rather than merely
housing art, they generate images: their galleries func-
tion as stage sets for the auto- performance of self-
ies, and their exhibitions furnish archives from which
spectators select and capture artworks in cell-p hone
snaps. They facilitate a mode of production, in which
pictures lead to more pictures to be stored in personal
collections that need not conform to authoritative art
histories. Some museums have even begun to adjust
their design to accommodate this mode of production.
Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which
opened in 2021, literally turns the museum on its head
by consolidating its storage into an open archive dis-
played in a freestanding bowl- shaped structure with a
mirrored facade. As the institution’s website explains:
“Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen is the first depot in the
world that offers access to a complete collection. The
dynamics of the depot are different from that of the
museum: no exhibitions are organized here, but you
can— independently or with a guide— browse through
ix