collection rather than an ‘‘oeuvre.’’ This way, she
eliminates the need for spurious artistic justifica-
tions for the many repetitions of a same subject in
different photographs. As an archival practice,
photography is automatically justified in its catalo-
guing of a subject matter through time.
The growing importance of photography in the
critical evaluation of her field is self evident in her
fourth book,The Originality of the Avant-Garde and
Other Modernist Myths(1985). In 1990, the Macula
Editions in Paris compiled twelve previously pub-
lished articles with a new introduction under the
title,Le Photographique, pour une the ́orie des e ́carts.
In the line of Roland Barthes and Walter Benja-
min, Krauss establishes photography, or more pre-
cisely, the photographic, as a theoretical tool with
which she can re-examine a variety of artistic pro-
ductions. She poses as essential for the re-evaluation
of our apprehension of art objects the indexical
quality of photography. As a sign which has a rela-
tionship with its referent based on a physical asso-
ciation, photography functions in the same mode as
impressions, symptoms, traces, or clues. As such,
photography differs completely from other modes
of reproduction that could be qualified as iconic,
where resemblance establishes the relationship with
the referent. This semiological specificity of photo-
graphy is used by Krauss as a theoretical tool to
look at other works of art in the way they function
as signs. She interprets the importance that the work
of Marcel Duchamp took in the 1960s as the exemp-
lary modernist practice through the recognition of a
pivotal point in the conception of painting and
sculpture. The work of Duchamp develops pictorial
and sculptural practices that function as indexes
rather than icons, providing a new interpretation
of what constitutes an aesthetic image. It is precisely
this substitution of modes, the indexical for the
iconic, in the work of Duchamp that led Rosalind
Krauss to talk about photography and to under-
stand through photography how Duchamp influ-
enced the American artists of her generation.
Besides her work as a critic and theoretician, Rosa-
lind Krauss has curated exhibitions, many of them on
contemporary sculpture. In the area of photography,
she originated the exhibitionL’Amour Fou: Surreal-
ism and Photography, at the Corcoran Art Gallery,
Washington, DC, in 1985. She authored a book on
Cindy Sherman in 1994, and her 2000 bookBachelors
examines female artists including photographers
Claude Cahun, Sherman, and Francesca Woodman.
YvesClemmen
Seealso:Atget, Euge`ne; Barthes, Roland; Decon-
struction; Semiotics; Sherman, Cindy; Woodman,
FrancescaBiography
Born in Washington, DC, November 30, 1940. Attended
Wellesley College, B.A., 1962; Harvard University, Ph.D.,- Associate editor of theArtforum, 1971–1976; editor
ofOctober Magazine, 1976–. Associate Professor of Art
History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1965–
1971; lecturer, Princeton University, New Jersey, 1972–
1974; Professor, Hunter College, New York, 1975–1990;
Meyer Shapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory,
Columbia University, 1992–. John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Fellowship, 1971; the Frank Jewett Matter
Award for distinction in art criticism, 1972. Lives in
New York.
Selected Works
The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist
Myths. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985. (Paperback
edition 1986)
Le Photographique: pour une The ́orie des E ́carts. Histoire et
the ́orie de la photographie. Paris: Macula, 1990
Cindy Sherman, 1975–1993. With an essay by Norman Bry-
son, New York: Rizzoli, 1993
The Optical Unconscious. October Books. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1993. (Paperback edition 1994)
Francesca Woodman, Photographic Work. Exhibition catalo-
gue. With Ann Gabhart and essay by Abigail Solomon-
Godeau. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Museum, 1986Further Reading
Carrier, David.Rosalind Krauss and American Philosophical
Art Criticism: From Formalism to Beyond Postmodern-
ism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
Kraus, Rosalind, Jane Livingstone, and Dawn Ades.
L’amour fou: Photography and Surrealism. Washington,
DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art; New York: Abbeville
Press, 1985.
Squiers, Carol, et al.Over Exposed: Essays on Contempor-
ary Photography. New York: New Press, 1999.KRAUSS, ROSALIND