Katalin Makkai: "The Aesthetics of Absorption"

Katalin Makkai, Bard College Berlin: "The aesthetics of absorption: painting and beholder in Michael Fried ’s Absorption and Theatricality"

Abstract
In his book Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot, Michael Fried makes a powerful case for the existence of an “absorptive” and “anti-theatrical” tradition of painting and art criticism and art theory. That tradition thinks of painting as needing to "establish” the “fiction" of "the absence of the beholder". What is it to establish this fiction—that is, what is anti-theatricality? What is the threat or danger that anti-theatricality seeks to stave off, and is it incoherent or self-defeating? And how is it related to the conception of aesthetic value and experience that Fried ascribes to this tradition?