How Painters Today Are Reframing… the Frame
Summary
This episode delves into the burgeoning trend of artists creating distinctive, attention-grabbing frames, moving beyond their traditional role as unnoticed borders. Artnet writer Katie White discusses the history of framing, from early European styles and gilded frames to their industrialization and the minimalist reactions of Impressionists and modernists. Today's artists are using frames to engage with art history, explore the materiality of objects in a "super flat" digital world, and prompt a re-evaluation of the art object itself.Episode description
Almost by definition, the frame of a picture is something that you are not supposed to notice.
But if you go to the art galleries to look at paintings now, you might get a very different sense of what a frame can or even should do. Weird and wild frames that very much draw attention to themselves seem to be having a moment.
Recently, Artnet writer and editor Katie White penned a piece titled Bordercore: Why Frames Became the New Frontier in Contemporary Art.
In her essay, she looks both at the history of framing styles, and talks to a number of contemporary painters to figure out what is causing so many to treat something that was literally considered peripheral to what they do as very much part of the main attraction. This week she joins Art Critic Ben Davis on the podcast to discuss this new frontier in art.