Michael Fried

Bio: Michael Fried is an academic researcher from Johns Hopkins University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Painting & Realism. The author has an hindex of 17, co-authored 46 publications receiving 1553 citations. Previous affiliations of Michael Fried include Sewanee: The University of the South.

Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot

Abstract: Four Studies in the Music of the Later Nineteenth Century Carl Dahlhaus Translated by Mary Whittall These four new interpretations of style and idea in late nineteenth-century music treat Nietzsche's penetrating youthful analysis of the contradictions in Wagner's doctrine; the question of periodicization in \"romantic\" and \"neo-romantic\" music; the underlying kinship between Brahms's and Wagner's responses to the central musical problems of their time; and the true significance of musical nationalism. Included is Walter Kaufmann's new translation of the previously unpublished fragment, \"On Music and Words,\" by the young Nietzsche. $10.00

Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews

Abstract: Michael Fried. Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. The Michael Fried of Art and Objecthood is a marvel of certitude, and in James Joyce's Stephen Hero he has found a nearly perfect epigraph for this collection of his art criticism: "[H]e was persuaded that no-one served the generation into which he had been born so well as he who offered it, whether in his art or in his life, the gift of certitude." Fried's writings on art divide between two distinct periods. Art and Objecthood collects his art criticism from 1962 to 1977. In the early 1970s, Fried ceased to make criticism his main endeavor and instead rededicated himself to art history. The result has been Absorption and Theatricality, Courbet's Realism, and Manet's Modernism, an epic, three-volume study of the origins of modernist painting cast in terms of the relationship between painting and beholder in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. If the later, art-historical period finds Fried, in his own words, "resolutely nonjudgmental," then the earlier, art-critical period finds Fried packing a career's-or a lifetime's?-worth of strongly argued evaluation into the span of a decade and a half. As a critic, Fried is synonymous with the demand that art compel conviction. Art and Objecthood is proof that nowhere in art criticism of the period in question will you find conviction to match Fried's. The frontispiece to Art and Objecthood is Frank Stella's Portrait of Michael Fried Standing on His Head Far above Cayuga 's Waters, and the will to stand on one's head and the remarkable will to judgment in these essays strikes the reader as poetically commensurate. I smiled. Fried's criticism has itself compelled conviction in the manner of a lightning rod-heated, angry conviction-and it is no exaggeration to say that his 1967 essay "Art and Objecthood" has provoked more debate than any other piece of art criticism in the last three decades. Fried's critics may find strength in numbers, but that isn't to say it hasn't been a fair fight. "Art and Objecthood" is Fried's critique of minimalism, particularly the work of Robert Morris and Donald Judd, on the basis of what he terms its "theatricality"-the work's appeal to the viewer by means of staging a particular presence, a mode Fried judges "surefire" and "inartistic." There have been several occasions since the publication of "Art and Objecthood" in which Fried has responded to his critics; one has the impression in reading the lengthy, fascinating introduction to this volume that he hopes these will be his final words on that essay. What is the gist of Fried's revisitation of "Art and Objecthood" three decades down the line? There isn't much that he would change. …

Why photography matters as art as never before

Abstract: From the late 1970s onward, serious art photography began to be made at large scale and for the wall. Michael Fried argues that this immediately compelled photographers to grapple with issues centering on the relationship between the photograph and the viewer standing before it that until then had been the province only of painting. Fried further demonstrates that certain philosophically deep problems--associated with notions of theatricality, literalness, and objecthood, and touching on the role of original intention in artistic production, first discussed in his contro-versial essay "Art and Objecthood" (1967)--have come to the fore once again in recent photography. This means that the photo-graphic "ghetto" no longer exists; instead photography is at the cutting edge of contemporary art as never before. Among the photographers and video-makers whose work receives serious attention in this powerfully argued book are Jeff Wall, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Andreas Gursky, Luc Delahaye, Rineke Dijkstra, Patrick Faigenbaum, Roland Fischer, Thomas Demand, Candida Hofer, Beat Streuli, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, James Welling, and Bernd and Hilla Becher. Future discussions of the new art photography will have no choice but to take a stand for or against Fried's conclusions.

Absorption and theatricality : painting and beholder in the age of Diderot

Abstract: With this widely acclaimed work, Fried revised the way in which eighteenth-century French painting and criticism were viewed and understood."A reinterpretation supported by immense learning and by a series of brilliantly perceptive readings of paintings and criticism alike. . . . An exhilarating book."--John Barrell, "London Review of Books"

The Case of Blackness

Abstract: The cultural and political discourse on black pathology has been so perva sive that it could be said to constitute the background against which all representations of blacks, blackness, or (the color) black take place. Its man ifestations have changed over the years, though it has always been poised between the realms of the pseudo-social scientific, the birth of new sciences, and the normative impulse that is at the heart of—but thai strains against— the black radicalism that strains against it. From the origins of the critical philosophy in the assertion of its extra-rational foundations in teleological principle; to the advent and solidification of empiricist human biology that moves out of the convergence of phrenology, criminology, and eugenics; to the maturation of (American) sociology in the oscillation between good and bad-faith attendance to "the negro problem"; to the analysis of and dis course on psychopathology and the deployment of these in both colonial oppression and anticolonial resistance; to the regulatory metaphysics that undergirds interlocking notions of sound and color in aesthetic theory: blackness has been associated with a certain sense of decay, even when that decay is invoked in the name of a certain (fetishization of) vitality. Black radical discourse has often taken up, and held itself within, the stance of the pathologist. Going back to David Walker, at least, black radi calism is animated by the question, What's wrong with black folk? The extent to which radicalism (here understood as the performance of a general critique of the proper) is a fundamental and enduring force in the black public sphere—so much so that even black "conservatives" are always con strained to begin by defining themselves in relation to it—is all but self evident. Less self-evident is the normative striving against the grain of the very radicalism from which the desire for norms is derived. Such striving is directed toward those lived experiences of blackness that are, on the one hand, aligned with what has been called radical and, on the other hand,

Basic Properties of Thin-Disk Oscillations

Abstract: In this paper oscillations on geometrically thin disks are reviewed, focusing on two issues. One is the characteristics of disk oscillations. The other is possible excitation mechanisms of these oscillations. The main purpose of this paper is to clarify the physics and dynamics involved in these issues. We consider both Newtonian and generalrelativistic disks, since a comparison of the oscillations on both disks clarifies the differences among these two oscillations and is helpful for understanding the unique properties of relativistic disks. Furthermore, we sometimes refer to stellar oscillations, since a comparison with stellar oscillations is helpful to have a deeper understanding of the disk oscillations, especially of the excitation mechanisms.

The artful mind meets art history: toward a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation.

Abstract: Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework.

Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence

Abstract: Eyewitnessing evaluates the place of images among other kinds of historical evidence By reviewing the many varieties of images by region, period and medium, and looking at the pragmatic uses of images (eg the Bayeux Tapestry, an engraving of a printing press, a reconstruction of a building), Peter Burke sheds light on our assumption that these practical uses are 'reflections' of specific historical meanings and influences He also shows how this assumption can be problematic Traditional art historians have depended on two types of analysis when dealing with visual imagery, iconography and iconology Burke describes and evaluates these approaches, concluding that they are insufficient Focusing instead on the medium as message and on the social contexts and uses of images, he discusses both religious images and political ones, also looking at images in advertising and as commodities Ultimately, Burke's purpose is to show how iconographic and post-iconographic methods - psychoanalysis, semiotics, viewer response, deconstruction - are both useful and problematic to contemporary historians