Craig Owens, From Work to Frame, or, Is There Life After “The Death of the Author”?

Release of S*I*G #12
Friday, 25. 6. 2021, 14:00 – 20:00
at 
saxpublishers
Werdertorgasse 4/2/13
1010 Vienna

Craig Owens (1950–1990) was an associate editor at October and a senior editor at Art in America. A selection of his writings are collected in Beyond Recognition—Representation, Power, and Culture (1992); in 2018 Badlands Unlimited published Craig Owens–Portrait of a Young Critic, based on Craig Owens’ 1984 interview with Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield.

The focus of Owens’ essay “From Work to Frame, or, Is There Life After ‘The Death of the Author’?” is how artistic production finds its conditions for success within a social universe, and therefore is an acknowledgement of conditions related to production and reception while incorporating an understanding of how authorship in artistic work can be realized. The shift goes, as the title announces, from the work to the frame, and at the same time to a determination of those conditions that make works appear as frames. With its citations of writings by Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and Michael Foucault, the essay is also an example of the manifestation of “French Theory” within a North American context.

“From Work to Frame” was first published in English and Swedish in 1987 in a catalog of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm for the exhibition “Implosion: A Postmodern Perspective” (October 24, 1987–January 10, 1988).

As S*I*G #12, the text is published in English and German, alongside a preface by Hannes Loichinger, who is editor of this issue.

S*I*G is a periodical series of essays, published by artist Megan Francis Sullivan, designed in collaboration with Sara De Bondt.

The release of S*I*G #12 at saxpublishers / FELIX GAUDLITZ will be accompanied by a small presentation of publications related to the essay. 

ISSN: 2474-6983
sig-verlag.net