Underskog

What is the Frame, and what does the process of framing entail in the production of art?

Framing for the Modernist was a methodological constraint to give determinate boundaries to the reading of the art piece. The inside of the frame would always indicate where the exact location of the semiotic meaning of the artwork would reside. This border would reduce, or totally obliterate, the confusion of where, and how, the meaning of the artwork was to be understood. Knowing the exact perimeters of the art piece, as detailed by the frame, was the definitive means of severing inexact and loose meanings which could be wandering about the work, but not meaningful to its sense. The frame was a clarification of the locale of meaning for the artwork.

As opposed to this, for the Postmodernist, there can be no singular place to locate the meaning of the art piece. Every artwork will operate in multiple frames each of which will be differently determinated in constructing the ideas, meanings, thoughts, and representations of the piece. A physical frame around a painting will never be able to indicate an absolute “inside” reading to a artwork, as any understanding is culturally and socially determined on multiple layers. Each different environment in which the art piece finds itself will trigger diverse framings and enable multiple readings, depending on culture, site, architecture, situation, physical supports, etc. As O’Doherty notes, starting in the modernist era: the only true stability for a art piece is by acceptance of a singular and determinate frame. The limiting frame gives up the experience as total and generates a select number of meanings for the art piece: “For this process, the stability of the frame is as necessary as an oxygen tank is to a diver. Its limiting security completely defines the experience within. The border as absolute limit is confirmed in easel art up to the nineteenth century”.

Yet, the outside begins to haunt the inside margins of the artwork as postmodernism enters the scene and the frame now begins to relinquish its hard status and becomes a fuzzy and unsettled glance. The frame, as this new era recognizes, begins to become unsettled and multiples and expands. All circumstances, situations, cultures, ideas, and locales are a “framing” of the art piece, The Frame, the inside and outside, is more a question than a boundary.

This lecture will explore the notion of the frame: how frame delimits and expands meanings in the artwork, how frame is integrated or rejects the art situation, the hidden frame of the environment, and how the idea of the frame has changed from easel painting to the new abstraction. Special weight will be given to looking at the concepts of Brian O’Doherty in his “Inside the White Cube” and Jacques Derrida’s "Truth in Painting”.

Monday Lectures is a public platform combining invited guest lecturers and professors and researchers of the faculty at KMD. Monday Lectures aim to create a diverse programme of lectures exploring a wide range of disciplines and research topics. Lectures typically take place Mondays 10:00 at the Knut Knaus Auditorium and are free and open to all.