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Victor Burgin: The End of Art Theory
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Nayyer Tahoori *   |
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Abstract: (26725 Views) |
| Victor Burgin is a famous British artist, renowned for his photographs and theories on art. Introducing his prominent theory through collected essays in a book titled The End of Art Theory he was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1986, in addition to exhibiting his works in Institute of Contemporary Arts and Kettle's Yard Gallery in Cambridge (1984). In this book, he exposes "the end of art theory" contrary to other theories with similar subject the most renowned one belongs to Arthur Danto. Influenced by such thinkers as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan, Burgin’s writings mainly cover the fields of conceptual art, criticism, and art theory. His recent book, Parallel Texts is a collection of his essays, interviews and theoretical writings.
According to Burgin, “art theory”, understood as those interdependent forms of art history, aesthetics and criticism which began during the Enlightenment and culminated in the recent period of “high modernism” is now at the end. Nonetheless, since every theoretical argument about art may be considered essentially a kind of theory, it seems paradoxical that Burgin as an artist simultaneously is theorizing about art and critic. No need to say that applying a kind of theory in deliberating about an artwork is inevitable.
This article discusses the Burgin’s idea on conceptual art which is predicated upon Freudian psychology and is mostly focused on artist’s character as the fruit of natural structure of human psyche through a social process. He not only expresses the art theory in a continuum of art history, criticism and aesthetics but also defines it in the cycle of economy and politics. From his point of view, artwork is nothing but the product of this interwoven system. For him, a conceptual artwork is theoretically expressive. In other words, nowadays the art has transferred into theory and criticism it follows that art theory has reached to an end and now it is declared through artworks. To conclude, the author would argue that in the world of art today, there is no need to separate professions as artists, critics and theorists anymore since all of them are compacted in one: an artist own self! |
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| Keywords: Victor Burgin, end of art theory, conceptual art, criticism, aesthetic |
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Full-Text [PDF 709 kb]
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Type of Study: Research |
Subject:
Special
Received: 2013/06/11 | Accepted: 2013/06/19
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