BIBLIO is the largest independent book marketplace in the world, with over 100 million books.

Skip to content

The Optical Unconscious
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Optical Unconscious Paperback - 1994

by Rosalind E. Krauss

Add to wish list

The Optical Unconscious is a protest against the official story of modernism and against the critical tradition that attempted to define modern art according to certain sacred truths. Rosalind Krauss tells the story of the optical unconscious, an unruly, disruptive force that haunted modernism from the 1920s to the 1950s, and which continues to disrupt it today.

Reader reviews for The Optical Unconscious

From the publisher

The Optical Unconscious is a pointed protest against the official story of modernism and against the critical tradition that attempted to define modern art according to certain sacred commandments and self-fulfilling truths. The account of modernism presented here challenges the vaunted principle of "vision itself." And it is a very different story than we have ever read, not only because its insurgent plot and characters rise from below the calm surface of the known and law-like field of modernist painting, but because the voice is unlike anything we have heard before. Just as the artists of the optical unconscious assaulted the idea of autonomy and visual mastery, Rosalind Krauss abandons the historian's voice of objective detachment and forges a new style of writing in this book: art history that insinuates diary and art theory, and that has the gait and tone of fiction.

The Optical Unconscious will be deeply vexing to modernism's standard-bearers, and to readers who have accepted the foundational principles on which their aesthetic is based. Krauss also gives us the story that Alfred Barr, Meyer Shapiro, and Clement Greenberg repressed, the story of a small, disparate group of artists who defied modernism's most cherished self-descriptions, giving rise to an unruly, disruptive force that persistently haunted the field of modernism from the 1920s to the 1950s and continues to disrupt it today.

In order to understand why modernism had to repress the optical unconscious, Krauss eavesdrops on Roger Fry in the salons of Bloomsbury, and spies on the toddler John Ruskin as he amuses himself with the patterns of a rug; we find her in the living room of Clement Greenberg as he complains about "smart Jewish girls with their typewriters" in the 1960s, and in colloquy with Michael Fried about Frank Stella's love of baseball. Along the way, there are also narrative encounters with Freud, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-Franois Lyotard.

To embody this optical unconscious, Krauss turns to the pages of Max Ernst's collage novels, to Marcel Duchamp's hypnotic Rotoreliefs, to Eva Hesse's luminous sculptures, and to Cy Twombly's, Andy Warhol's, and Robert Morris's scandalous decoding of Jackson Pollock's drip pictures as "Anti-Form." These artists introduced a new set of values into the field of twentieth-century art, offering ready-made images of obsessional fantasy in place of modernism's intentionality and unexamined compulsions.

Details

  • Title The Optical Unconscious
  • Author Rosalind E. Krauss
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 366
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher MIT Press, Cambridge
  • Publication date 1994-07-25
  • ISBN 9780262611053 / 0262611058
  • Weight 1.25 lbs (0.57 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.01 x 6.87 x 0.85 in (22.89 x 17.45 x 2.16 cm)
  • Age range 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Category Art & Art Instruction
  • Dewey Decimal Code 701

About the author

Rosalind E. Krauss is University Professor in the Department of Art History at Columbia University, where, from 1995 to 2006, she held the Meyer Schapiro Chair in Modern Art and Theory. She is a founding editor of October and the author of Passages in Modern Sculpture, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Myths, The Optical Unconscious, Bachelors, Perpetual Inventory, Under Blue Cup (all published by the MIT Press), and other books.

More Copies for Sale

The Optical Unconscious

Krauss, Rosalind E

We're sorry, this copy is no longer available.
The Optical Unconscious (October Books)

The Optical Unconscious (October Books)

by Krauss, Rosalind E.

  • Used
  • Very good
  • Paperback
Condition
Very good
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
2
Seller
Item price
A$42.24
A$16.37 Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
Paperback. Very Good.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$42.24
A$16.37 Delivery to USA
The Optical Unconscious
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Optical Unconscious

by Krauss, Rosalind E

  • Used
Condition
Used
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$39.43
Free Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
MIT Press. Used - Good. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$39.43
Free Delivery to USA
The Optical Unconscious (October Books)
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Optical Unconscious (October Books)

by Krauss, Rosalind E. E

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
Used
Edition
Reprint
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$44.05
Free Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
MIT Press, 1994-07-25. Reprint. paperback. Used: Good. 9.01x6.87x0.85. Buy with confidence. Excellent Customer Service & Return policy.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$44.05
Free Delivery to USA
The Optical Unconscious
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Optical Unconscious

by Krauss, Rosalind E.

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
VG (Light shelfwear to wraps and bookblock.)
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$50.53
A$18.75 Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993. Paperback. VG (Light shelfwear to wraps and bookblock.). Dark purple illustrated wraps. 353 pp. 121 bw plates. A pointed protest against the official story of modernism and against the critical tradition that attempted to define modern art according to certain sacred commandments and self-fulfilling truths. Krauss forges a new writing style: art history that insinuates diary and art theory and has the tone of fiction.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$50.53
A$18.75 Delivery to USA
Optical Unconscious, The

Optical Unconscious, The

by Rosalind E. Krauss

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
Very Good +
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$35.00
A$50.00 Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
MIT Press Academic, 1994. Softcover. Very Good +. ART Philosophy -The Optical Unconscious is a pointed protest against the official story of modernism and against the critical tradition that attempted to define modern art according to certain sacred commandments and self-fulfilling truths. The account of modernism presented here challenges the vaunted principle of ""vision itself."" And it is a very different story than we have ever read, not only because its insurgent plot and characters rise from below the calm surface of the known and law-like field of modernist painting, but because the voice is unlike anything we have heard before. Just as the artists of the optical unconscious assaulted the idea of autonomy and visual mastery, Rosalind Krauss abandons the historian's voice of objective detachment and forges a new style of writing in this book: art history that insinuates diary and art theory, and that has the gait and tone of fiction.The Optical Unconscious will be deeply vexing to… Read more
Add to wish list
Item price
A$35.00
A$50.00 Delivery to USA
The Optical Unconscious (October Books)
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Optical Unconscious (October Books)

by Rosalind E. Krauss

  • Used
  • Paperback
  • first
Condition
Good Condition
Edition
[ Edition: First ]
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$51.14
A$6.14 Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
[ Edition: First ]. Good Condition. [ No Hassle 30 Day Returns ][ Ships Daily ] [ Underlining/Highlighting: NONE ] [ Writing: NONE ] Publisher: The MIT Press Pub Date: 7/25/1994 Binding: Paperback Pages: 365
Add to wish list
Item price
A$51.14
A$6.14 Delivery to USA
The Optical Unconscious (October Books)
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Optical Unconscious (October Books)

by Krauss, Rosalind E. E

  • New
  • Paperback
Condition
New
Edition
Reprint
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
6
Seller
Item price
A$72.33
Free Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
MIT Press, 1994-07-25. Reprint. paperback. New. 9.01x6.87x0.85. Buy with confidence. Excellent Customer Service & Return policy.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$72.33
Free Delivery to USA
The Optical Unconscious (October Books)
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Optical Unconscious (October Books)

by Krauss, Rosalind E.

  • Used
  • Good
  • Paperback
Condition
Good
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$78.12
Free Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
paperback. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$78.12
Free Delivery to USA
The Optical Unconscious (October Books)
Stock photo: cover may vary

The Optical Unconscious (October Books)

by Krauss, Rosalind E. E

  • Used
  • Good
  • Paperback
Condition
Good
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780262611053 / 0262611058
Quantity available
1
Seller
Item price
A$78.17
Free Delivery to USA

Show details

Description:
The MIT Press. paperback. Good. 9.1x6.9x0.9. Buy with confidence. Excellent Customer Service & Return policy.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$78.17
Free Delivery to USA