Clement Greenberg & His Legacy

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872 (Musée Marmottan)
Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872 (Musée Marmottan)

John Yau examines Clement Greenberg's legacy in the context of contemporary art focusing on "provisional" and "casual" painting.

Yau writes: "It seems to me that the current situation is not about available options... which span a wide range of possibilities, or about a critic channeling Greenberg’s legacy and identifying the next viable tendency in art. Rather, it revolves around one fundamental question: how does an individual go about making work when a significant part of the art world believes that painting and drawing are dead? Or, to put it another way: after the death of the author, how does an individual reinstate the mantle of authorship and take responsibility for what he or she makes?"