burton: "monochromeness" [map: about aesthetic and salable void]

"decoy, urge to roll call, appropriative gesture" [awareness motion to
reference without meaning appropriation, mode, marketing, referencing
referencing]

"violent erasure, pining homage" [v. 80s read of problem of reference]

"resolve a monochrome" [resolve?: do all the artists she sites

"resolve" the monochrome? resolution v. claims for problems of
painting imaging lack of image (Wall) absence of picture after
photojournalism - this is a kind of referencing not actually
appropriation it references appropriation as a dominant strategy, you
can't appropriate a monochrome only reference its production something
that is so imitable its actually inimitable (as appropriated) -
conflation of imitation and mimesis with appropriation, stakes of
appropriation are question of property, what is proper to the artist's
task as work - if it is to be a user of culture then this work betrays
an exhaustion with that model v. Burton's "productive panic" (more a
function of her position as writer confronting the work) this panic
sounds almost ahistorical as she describes it, does not adequately
convey the contemporary reality of being an artist making art]

"institutional critique" for Burton tenets of institutional critique have
been accepted by institutions, has become a style (Buren) [map: has
become a style but the tenets have not been evacuated they remain (corresponding point)]

map: task of artist making things - "aboutness" is a accepted way of
making "good" things (impotence content context language), this goes
back to the legacy of conceptual art which automates the execution of
the artist's task, guyton's work signals an exhaustion with principles
of art as solemn task of artist make aesthetic works - question of the
commodity has fallen out of critique that conceptual art began)

Burton: "once Buren legible as painting, painting will have died"
[map: end of production of works once codes destroyed or forgotten,
Burton seems to sound a quasi-existential tone in her account of the
Guyton's persistence in making art, this is an Octoberist narrative in
that what matters to it is art historical discourse, the imminent
failure, the meet subversion, in that sense Burton's is an
anti-historical narrative that fails to consider the institutions of
art function and produce a specific historical situation now - the
paradigm of aboutness the task of making that makes making
transparent, is what aboutness is about, links to the history of
monochrome are superficial in that sense, "ostensible" (are we giving a fair
account of Burton's position here?)

what this means is the Guyton's work is not about anxiety about history (the history of painting) as much as it functions in a contemporary field, monochrome falls out of
the critical tradition, take up legacy of this discourse, Burton wants
this to be a certain kind of essay, a less interesting essay would do
a synchronic reading (are we saying out essay would not try so hard to
be "interesting" i.e. involved in seductive historical aboutness?)

here the diachronic is the decoy, Guyton accepts painting as a unit of
meaning, color is in play, its is a carrier of meaning. appropriation
as a cancellation in early inkjet works partakes of the easy charge of
the appropriative gesture (develop) his is a tragic practice, it
accepts as a given that task of the artist as appropriator (mechanism)
- he wants to produce something like a mediumness in his use of
printed ink, which is an abstraction of appropriation, a canceling
that is not negating, it refers to a discourse of medium specificity
as a something that could be appropriated wholesale as a discourse. -
why wrong to read works as "also" aesthetic, conceptual gesture takes
for granted that things look good, suspends that but doesn't cancel
it, that is actually its problem. gestures are not negative, what do
you do when even junk looks good, mobilize that desirability, these
works want to be seen as works that want to be high modernist, (how
can?) the artist produce an object that can be desired, when
aesthetics no longer a category, how to make a desirable monochrome,
the blips in Warhol screens - machine image that involves the erotica
of imperfection, showing not showing v. total image, its
attractiveness is indexed to the attitude of the producer, carelessly
executed bearing different signs of care, questionable lack of care,
referencing not simply the producer of image but the relationship
between producer and image, that is why there is an erotics? as a
viewer you are asked to be interested in his interest, erotics of
celebrity, and celebrity artists, not about caring about the thing
that the work is ostensibly about but that the artist cares about it
(readymade) connoisseurship - modality of interest not the thing
itself?

aboutness not about commitment, why it is linked to erotics of
celebrity position of consumer is fortified, return to specificity of
medium in recent sculpture is one way to counter the mandate of being
interested, after Judd if the criteria is merely interest (formulation
that obscures relations of social-capital) relief not to have to
desire "anything" and yet remain desirable - its taken for granted
that artists must participate in taste culture, convention of artist's
top ten, this is a reversal of conceptual art, which was to be the end
of taste, the radicality of Judd's rejection of taste as an organizing
principle for art, art henceforth community bound to interest in the
world, impossible counterclaim aestheticism cultivates elite taste

universality of the burden to continue to desire things unspoken problem
ostensibly desire in general, specific art world taste a taste regime,
institutionality of taste making, artforum
taste making no longer "i am critic and these are my criteria, what
people like pre-given, question of what is good obscures conditions of
social-capital
relations abstracted taste is arbitrary not a function of a critical
criteria, (arbitrariness secures the mechanisms of social capital)
art's inability to re-function object where taste is (dialectical?)
forlorn referentiality aesthetic contingency arise in art in the age
of reproduction, modern, stuck with its aesthetics (?) monochrome
doesn't carry meaning meanings, it is a style, idea evacuated
melancholy, loss tragic (distinguish from 80s post modernism?)
Burton: tragic persistence inutility (check quote) map: but for right reasons?
not a question of painting after painting not about painting, but
rather the general conditions for producing art work, makes visible
those condition of making art, everything predictable and yet you
still want it, you want coconut lamps that work.