Retracing the Expanded Field

de Spyros Papapetros

If modernists invented the model of an ostensible 'synthesis of the arts,' their postmodern progeny promoted the semblance of pluralist fusion. In 1979, reacting against contemporary art's transformation of modernist medium-specificity into postmodernist medium multiplicity, the art historian Rosalind Krauss published an essay, 'Sculpture in the Expanded Field,' that laid out in a precise diagram the structural parameters of sculpture, architecture, and landscape art. Krauss tried to clarify what these art practices were, what they were not, and what they could become if logically combined. The essay soon assumed a canonical status and affected subsequent developments in all three fields. This book revisits Krauss's hugely influential text and maps the ensuing interactions between art and architecture.