Open Systems Rethinking Art c.1970

This paper addresses the work of Mark Rothko (1903–1970) and Robert Smithson (1938–1973), and, referring to the philosopher Kant and psychoanalyst Lacan, discusses how the sublime can have a psychotic aspect. It argues that Kant’s categorical imperative, for all its attempts to exclude self-interest and the pathological aspects of the hypothetical imperative, establishes a frame not only for sublime aesthetic experience but also for psychotic delusion.

Jack Burnham’s systems aesthetics was one of the first, fully developed, critical theories of postformalist artistic practice. Yet Burnham, undeservedly, is little known today. Recovering, reprising and reassessing his work produces a richer reading of art production c.1970. It also suggests an alternative genealogy of contemporary practice.