Annette Michelson - Michael Snow

OCTOBER Files

Rosalind Krauss (founding editor), Annette Michelson (founding editor), George Baker, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Leah Dickerman, Devin Fore, Hal Foster, Denis Hollier, David Joselit, Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Mignon Nixon, and Malcolm Turvey, editors

Richard Serra, edited by Hal Foster with Gordon Hughes

Andy Warhol, edited by Annette Michelson

Eva Hesse, edited by Mignon Nixon

Robert Rauschenberg, edited by Branden W. Joseph

James Coleman, edited by George Baker

Cindy Sherman, edited by Johanna Burton

Roy Lichtenstein, edited by Graham Bader

Gabriel Orozco, edited by Yve-Alain Bois

Gerhard Richter, edited by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh

Richard Hamilton, edited by Hal Foster with Alex Bacon

Dan Graham, edited by Alex Kitnick

John Cage, edited by Julia Robinson

Claes Oldenburg, edited by Nadja Rottner

Louise Lawler, edited by Helen Molesworth with Taylor Walsh

Robert Morris, edited by Julia Bryan-Wilson

John Knight, edited by Andr Rottmann

Isa Genzken, edited by Lisa Lee

Hans Haacke, edited by Rachel Churner

Michael Asher, edited by Jennifer King

Mary Kelly, edited by Mignon Nixon

William Kentridge, edited by Rosalind Krauss

Bruce Nauman, edited by Taylor Walsh

Sherrie Levine, edited by Howard Singerman

Michael Snow, edited by Annette Michelson and Kenneth White

edited by Annette Michelson and Kenneth White

essays and interviews by Annette Michelson, Michael Snow, Andre Hayum, Amy Taubin, Thierry de Duve, Hubert Damisch, Jean Arnaud, rik Bullot, Malcolm Turvey, and Kenneth White

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

2019 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All works of art by Michael Snow the artist

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was set in Bembo Std by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Michelson, Annette, editor. | White, Kenneth (Kenneth Allan), editor.

Title: Michael Snow / edited by Annette Michelson and Kenneth White.

Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 2019. | Series: October files | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018060954| ISBN 9780262043021 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780262537728 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Snow, Michael, 1929---Aesthetics.

Classification: LCC NX513.Z9 S6435 2019 | DDC 709.2--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060954

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For Annette Michelson

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OCTOBER Files addresses individual bodies of work of the postwar period that meet two criteria: they have altered our understanding of art in significant ways, and they have prompted a critical literature that is serious, sophisticated, and sustained. Each book thus traces not only the development of an important oeuvre but also the construction of the critical discourse inspired by it. This discourse is theoretical by its very nature, which is not to say that it imposes theory abstractly or arbitrarily. Rather, it draws out the specific ways in which significant art is theoretical in its own right, on its own terms and with its own implications. To this end we feature essays, many first published in OCTOBER magazine, that elaborate different methods of criticism in order to elucidate different aspects of the art in question. The essays are often in dialogue with one another as they do so, but they are also as sensitive as the art to political context and historical change. These files, then, are intended as primers in signal practices of art and criticism alike, and they are offered in resistance to the amnesiac and antitheoretical tendencies of our time.

The Editors of OCTOBER

Annette Michelsons Toward Snow was first published in Artforum 9, no. 10 (June 1971). Michael Snows Passage was published in Artforum 10, no. 1 (September 1971). Andre Hayums A Casing Shelved was published in Film Culture 5657 (Spring 1973). Snows Musics for Piano, Whistling, Microphone, and Tape Recorder appeared with the double record album released by Chatham Square Records and the Av Isaacs Gallery in 1975. Amy Taubins Doubled Visions was first published in October 4 (Autumn 1977). Snows Notes for Rameaus Nephew was published in October 4 (Autumn 1977). Annette Michelsons About Snow was first published in October 8 (Spring 1979). Thierry de Duves Michael Snow: The Deictics of Experience, and Beyond began as a talk given on April 24, 1994, at the Art Gallery of Ontario on the occasion of Snows retrospective, The Michael Snow Project. It was first published in Parachute 78 (April/May/June 1995). Snows A Letter to Thierry de Duve appeared in Parachute 78 (April/May/June 1995). Hubert Damischs Concert (Portrait of an Artist as Michael Snow), translated by Gila Walker, was published in Michael Snow: Panoramique: Oeuvres photographiques & films/Photographic Works and Films, 19621999 (Brussels: Societ des expositions du Palais des beaux-arts, 1999). Jean Arnauds Touching to See, translated by Molly Stevens, was published in October 114 (Fall 2005). It was written for Histoire et esthtique du contact dans lart contemporain, edited by Sylvie Collier (Aix-en-Provence: Universit de Provence, 2005). rik Bullots Keaton and Snow, translated by Molly Stevens, was published in October 114 (Autumn 2005). It first appeared as De Buster Keaton Michael Snow in Art Press 24 (2003). Malcolm Turveys The Child in the Machine: On the Use of CGI in Michael Snows *Corpus Callosum was first published in October 114 (Fall 2005). Michelsons The Sound of Music: A Conversation with Michael Snow appeared in October 114 (Fall 2005). Kenneth Whites Strangeloves: From/De la rgion centrale, Air Defense Radar Station Moisie, and Media Cultures of the Cold War was first published in Grey Room 58 (Winter 2015).

My greatest thanks to Michael Snow for his generosity and support throughout the production of this volume, and to the authors for their permission to include their texts. My thanks to Mani Mazinani for his assistance with securing images. Rachel Churner provided assistance at every stage of the process, for which I am most grateful. My thanks to Adam Lehner for his expert guidance. I am thankful for the great fortune to work with Gabriela Bueno Gibbs and Deborah M. Cantor-Adams at the MIT Press. My thanks to Benjamin H.D. Buchloh for his enthusiastic encouragement of this volume. Ron Clark has shared invaluable direction, on this project and beyond. My deepest appreciation, as always, to Soyoung Yoon.

Annette Michelson was central to the conception and realization of this Michael Snow October Files series book. I am honored for this opportunity to work with her. Annette passed away when this volume was in the final stages of preparation; it is dedicated to her.