Craig Owens at the University of New Mexico, 1986

Craig Owens (1950–1990) was an American

post-modernist Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

, gay activist and

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

Biography

Craig Owens was a senior editor of ''

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...

'', a contributor to such scholarly journals as ''

Skyline A skyline is the outline or shape viewed near the horizon. It can be created by a city’s overall structure, or by human intervention in a rural setting, or in nature that is formed where the sky meets buildings or the land. City skylines ...

'' and ''

October October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the sixth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old calendar of Romulus , October retained its name (from Latin and Greek ''ôct ...

'', a graduate of

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducational ...

, and a professor of art history at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

. He wrote many essays on such diverse topics as

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

politics, art in the marketplace, serial art, and

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

, as well as a number of seminal essays on individual contemporary individual artists, including

Allan McCollum Allan McCollum (born 1944) is a contemporary American artist who lives and works in New York City. In 1975, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and he moved to New York City the same year. In the late 1970s he became especially well kn ...

, William Wegman, and

Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...

. According to his colleague Douglas Crimp, Owens's great interest in ballet was important to his critical work. According to the critic Thomas Lawson, Owens was "on the one hand... this very high-minded, very abstract thinker, but he also had this mischievous, playful side that was a little cruel, maybe." One of Owens's most influential essays was ''The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism,'' an article in two parts in which he explores the allegorical aspects of contemporary art. The two parts were published in the journal ''

'' in Spring 1980 and Summer 1980. In the first part Owens says that, "Allegorical imagery is appropriated imagery" (Owens, p54) and discerns an allegorical impulse at work in the

appropriation art Appropriation in art is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. The use of appropriation has played a significant role in the history of the arts (literary, visual, musical and performing arts) ...

of artists such as

Sherrie Levine Sherrie Levine (born 1947) is an American photographer, painter, and Conceptual art, conceptual artist. Some of her work consists of exact photographic reproductions of the work of other photographers such as Walker Evans, Eliot Porter and Edward ...

. He describes the postmodernist artist as one that "lays claim to the culturally significant, poses as its interpreter... If he adds, however, he does so only to replace: the allegorical meaning supplants an antecedent one; it is supplement" (Owens, p54). These inclinations can be seen in works such as oil-barrels of Belgian artist

Wim Delvoye Wim Delvoye (born 1965 in Wervik, West Flanders) is a Belgian neo-conceptual artist known for his inventive and often shocking projects. Much of his work is focused on the body. As the critic Robert Enright wrote in the art magazine ''Border ...

and bullets of a gun by French artist

Philippe Perrin Philippe Perrin (Colonel, French Air Force) (born January 6, 1963) is a French test pilot, engineer and former CNES and European Space Agency astronaut. Background Perrin was born 6 January 1963, in Meknes, Morocco, but considers Avignon, P ...

. With reference to

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

in ''

The Origin of German Tragic Drama ''The Origin of German Tragic Drama'' (german: Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels) was the postdoctoral major academic work (habilitation) submitted by Walter Benjamin to the University of Frankfurt in 1925, and not published until 1928.''Intro ...

'', he also links allegory with impermanence, the piling up of fragments and obsessional accumulation. These impulses can be seen, respectively, in

site-specific art Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork. Site-specific art is produced both by commercial artists, and independently, and can ...

photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final image ...

and art that follows a mathematical progression (for instance

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

). (Owens, p55-57). In the second part he considers the work of

Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

and

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (; May 2, 1950 – April 12, 2009) was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory ( queer studies), and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered groundbreaking in the fiel ...

, ''Tendencies'', Duke University Press, 1993, page 104

Bibliography

Books

*''Beyond Recognition – Representation. Power, and Culture'', Scott Bryson, Barbara Kruger, Lynne Tillman, Jane Weinstock (eds.), Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University California Press, 1992.

Selected articles

* "Earthwords" (1979). * "The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism" (1980). * "The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism (Part 2)" (1980). * "Representation, Appropriation, and Power" (1982). * "The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism" (1983). * "Outlaws: Gay Men in Feminism" (1987). * "’The Indignity of Speaking for Others’: An Imaginary Interview" (1983). * "Analysis Logical and Ideological" (1985). * "From Work to Frame, or, Is There Life After ’The Death of the Author’?" (1987).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Owens, Craig 1950 births 1990 deaths American art critics American feminists Feminist studies scholars American LGBT writers LGBT rights activists from the United States Postmodernists Postmodern theory Male feminists Postmodern feminists 20th-century American writers 20th-century LGBT people