SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING: TOWARD A MINOR PRACTICE
By
Troy Gronsdahl
BFA, University of Saskatchewan, 2002

A THESIS ESSAY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF APPLIED ARTS
in
Visual Arts

EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN
2015

© Troy Gronsdahl, 2015

Abstract

The social and political relevance of contemporary art is bound up in paradox. As the perceived
failures of the avant-garde demonstrate, even the most radical projects of the 20th century
eventually succumb to some form of institutional enfranchisement. As an artist working within
an art museum, this irony is particularly acute. Given the problematic political biases of the
institutions of art, how can artists elude this performative capture to exercise their agency?
In response to this, artists have probed the boundaries of art practice seeking a way out.
Acts of complete withdrawal, while dramatic, are not productive. Critique plays an important
political function of art, yet negation on its own is not enough. There is, I think, another way: not
a way out but a way in. Situated in and between modes of affirmation and dissent, my sculptures,
texts and photographs work in dialogue with art world conventions to create witty and poetic
meditations on art and knowledge. Through the use of humour and ambiguity, I operate
strategically within dominant narratives to keep performative capture at bay. Using a
methodology adapted from Deleuze and Guattari's theory of the minor, I aim to create a space of
productive estrangement to call forth new subjectivities.

ii

Table of Contents

Abstract

ii

Table of Contents

iii

List of Figures

iv

Acknowledgements

v

Dedication

vi

Introduction: Another way: not a way out, but a way in.

1

Chapter 1: The crotch of discursive space.

9

Chapter 2: A grammar of disequilibrium.

20

Chapter 3: It is what it is, only not entirely.

27

Conclusion: Possible Possibilities.

32

Works Cited

33

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List of Figures

Fig. 1. Troy Gronsdahl, triangle-lines of escape [What Is a Minor
Literature?], 2014. Remediated text, digital file.

8

Fig. 2. Troy Gronsdahl, the fact that they are not / insisted / reveal
something [Art and Objecthood], 2014-15. Varied edition, 40
letterpress impressions, cloth-bound, hardcover case, 11 x 10
inches. Detail of sheet.

13

Fig. 3. Troy Gronsdahl, the fact that they are not / insisted / reveal
something [Art and Objecthood], 2014-15. Varied edition, 40
letterpress impressions, cloth-bound, hardcover case, 11 x 10
inches. Detail of sheet in hardcover case.

15

Fig. 4. Troy Gronsdahl, Correspond closely to the rectangle
[Specific Objects], 2014. Excerpt from remediated text, digital file.

17

Fig. 5. Troy Gronsdahl, The Framework Series, 2014. Performance
documentation, Banff Centre.

18

Fig. 6. Troy Gronsdahl, The Framework Series, 2014. Performance
documentation, Banff Centre.

19

Fig. 7. Troy Gronsdahl, The Framework Series, 2014. Installation
instructions.

21

Fig. 8. Troy Gronsdahl, The Framework Series, 2014. Diagram and
documentation of studio installation.

23

Fig. 9. Troy Gronsdahl, When the cosmos aligned, if only briefly
and largely unnoticed. Equinox, total solar eclipse & perigee moon,
March 20, 2015, 4:45 p.m. local time (left) Solstice, June 21, 2015,
10:38 a.m. local time, 2015. Cyanotype, 22 x 30 inches. Photo by
Scott Massey.

26

Fig. 10. Troy Gronsdahl, in the failure of madness, vice is always
sought [Death of the Author], 2014. Remediated text, digital file.

30

iv

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my appreciation for my fellow graduates, the faculty and staff of Emily
Carr University of Art and Design and extend a special note of thanks to Kyla Mallett, Kathleen
Ritter, Kimberly Phillips, M. Simon Levin, John Cussans, Bruce Grenville, and Chris Jones.

v

Dedication

This is dedicated to a low interest Scotiabank Line of Credit, the City of Saskatoon, the City of
Vancouver, the internet, Diet Coke, UV light, Dr. Carleigh Brady, cheese (all kinds), knock off
modern furniture, haircuts, non-iron shirts, televised sports, innuendo, cheap mechanical pencils,
my family, my homies, people with difficult to pronounce names, people who let me hold their
babies, black coffee, back medication, Tacofino, drinking out of jam jars, and the French.

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Introduction: Another way: not a way out, but a way in.

I hold a variety of positions within the art world. As an artist, researcher, and curator I am
intimately acquainted with the complexities and contradictions of artistic practice, its histories
and institutions. I've tried to reconcile my deep admiration for the future-oriented, utopian
projects of the avant-garde with a mild case of second hand embarrassment. In a contemporary
social and political context where the status quo seems both fixed and determined by forces of
inertia that are at once immovable and unstoppable, the idea of writing a manifesto seems almost
quaint. As the artistic claims of modernism have been dismantled, various self-defeating
narratives have emerged in its wake.1 The irony that is often associated with postmodern practice
has created a climate of cynicism. Yet I cannot shake an unspoken—and perhaps at one time
unspeakable—yearning for the unrealized ambitions of the avant-garde art movements of the
past century, if only for potential of imagining something other than 'as is.'
Despite the art world’s incredible capacity for adaptation, artists continue to probe its
borders searching for lines of escape. Acts of complete withdrawal are ineffectual, and while
critique is an important political function of art, dissent alone is not enough. Operating outside of
art’s malleable boundaries seems increasingly implausible.2 Even practices that seek to obfuscate
the boundaries between art and everyday life are ultimately bound to some form institutional
enfranchisement. Given this, how can art or artists accomplish anything outside of supporting an
1 Joseph J. Tanke, What is the Aesthetic Regime?
2 See Andrea Fraser, From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique for a provocative and nuanced
exploration of institutional critique within the expanded field of art.

1

institutional imperative? How does art gain political consequence? There is, I think, another way:
not a way out but a way in.
Situated in the nexus in and between modes of affirmation and dissent, my sculptures,
texts and photographs work within art world conventions to create witty and poetic meditations
on art and culture. Through the use of humour, ambiguity, contradiction, and indeterminacy, I
aim to create a space of productive estrangement to produce new subjectivities. Using a
methodology adapted from Deleuze and Guattari's theory of the minor, I operate strategically
within dominant narratives to keep performative capture at bay.

If the advent of the readymade opened the art world to a wider scope of artistic practice, it also
reinforced the central position of the art museum as arbiter. As Duchamp's early provocations
demonstrated, the museum is a contextual frame capable of transforming some thing—an object,
action, concept—into an artwork. The attendant possibilities and problems of this ontological
transformation stimulated wide ranging artistic and discursive practices. Artists associated with
the conceptual art movement like Sol LeWitt, Robert Barry, and Lawrence Weiner, probed the
material limits of artistic practice: installations, dematerialized form, and text-based works tested
the commodity status of artwork. Paradoxically, conceptual artworks, even those that attempted
to circumvent the authority of the institution, eventually found their way into museums, galleries,
and auction houses and were ultimately domesticated by the art historical narrative. Exhibitions
of archives and ephemera from the conceptual art movement point to the contradiction inherent
in institutional critique. As artist and writer Rasheed Araeen observes, “what in fact emerged was
2

an anti-art that had no choice but to capitulate to the very institution that it wanted to confront,
becoming dependent on it for survival and legitimisation” (680).
Art institutions neatly absorb criticism, relegating radical or subversive artistic practice to
curated historical vignettes.3 It is an irony built into the very function of the museum. The
concept of performative capture speaks to the failure of the social transformational promises
embedded in modernism's various utterances.4 This is the performative bind – the ideological
compromise, institutional enclosure, and ontological capture of radical art practice.
Given the domestication of conceptual art practice and the paradox of institutional
critique, it may seem that participation in the institutions and apparatus that support the art world
is an act of complicity or resignation. In her book, How to Do Things With Art, academic
Dorothea Von Hantelmann argues: “singular expressive acts that completely withdraw from
discourse are not only irrelevant; they are not even thinkable” (19). Similarly, I am not seeking to
extricate my practice from its supporting apparatus, but rather operate strategically from within.
By directly engaging with historical materials and evoking art historical references, I aim to add
variability and uncertainty to dominant narratives. This artistic strategy aligns with Deleuze and
Guattari's theory of minor literature; through an analysis of three key works, I will seek to
articulate my variation of a minor practice.

3 In 2012, I encountered two important survey exhibitions, Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980 at the
Vancouver Art Gallery and State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970 presented at the Morris and Helen
Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia, that fuel my speculation that Vancouver is the national
custodian of the philosophical relics of Conceptual art. It is the reason I have pursued graduate study at Emily
Carr University of Art and Design.
4 Inversions, Insertions, Implications: A conversation with theorist Stephen Wright

3

In their book on Kafka, Deleuze and Guattari unravel their theory of the minor to demonstrate
how the disenfranchised voice may find agency through writing within a dominant language.
According to their theory, minor literature operates “within a major language” to produce
“language affected by a high level of deterritorialization” (16). It is through this process of
deterritorialization, Deleuze and Guattari argue, that language is “torn from sense... in order to
liberate a living and expressive material” (21). The minor practice could be said to occupy the
major: manipulating it, bending it, pushing it to its breaking point to produce new subjectivities
and expressive forms.
The deterritorialization of language —what artist and academic Simon O'Sullivan
interprets as “making strange of typical signifying regimes”—has a political function that is
essential to the minor practice. The minor is not explicitly engaged with the business of politics
as such, but rather exercises its political dimension within the specific sphere of aesthetics.5
In his writing on the politics of aesthetics, Jacques Rancière defines the political as the
“manifestation of dissensus.” As Rancière reminds us, dissensus is not “the confrontation
between interests or opinions” but rather “the manifestation of a distance of the sensible from
itself” (38). The sensible is what stabilizes normal positions of power. It determines and polices
what can be seen and heard. By deterritorializing the major, the minor activates a political
function that reflects and resists the seemingly preordained order. Through the rupture of the
sensible—sense torn from itself—the minor contests prematurely closed narratives and fixed or
assumed meanings to open to new possibilities.
5 As Rancière argues, the political is activated within a specific sphere—the sphere of aesthetics—whereby “the
political distribution of the perceptible” (Critical Dissensus, 8) becomes possible.

4

My photographs, sculptures, and text-based works operate within a conceptual mode. Through
this, it is not my intention to simply resuscitate an unfinished historical project, rather I see my
body of work coming into alignment with Hal Foster's notion of the incongruent: the creation of
“performative and provisional” art works that bring together traces of the past to create a “lyrical
kind of criticality” (141). The lyrical criticality I seek to articulate through the minor practice is
not situated in the exclusive realm of refusal, but plays between affirmation and dissent. As
Simon O'Sullivan observes: “to refuse, or somehow negate the existing language (and thus the
existing major forms) is important, but a minor art must do more than this. It must also involve
invention and creation. It is also this that gives the stuttering and stammering of a minor practice
such an inspirational, we might even say hopeful tenor.” The minor practice seeks to circumvent
the self-defeating narratives after modernism and despite its complicated relationship with
already-established formations, the minor remains future-oriented.
Performativity plays an important role in my practice and although a comprehensive
exploration of the concept exceeds the scope of this thesis, a couple of important aspects of the
performative are brought to bear in my work. I believe Foster is applying the term to suggest a
sort of production or activation of art through the body to generate a multi-dimensional space
around the artwork. I think aspects of my work would certainly qualify as performative under
this definition. I also use the term 'perform' to describe how my work operates within a particular
context. It is this usage that relates to the concept of performative capture and it is through yet
another application of the term performative that I seek to address this problem: its usage traced
back to the concept of the performative utterance.
5

Through a series of lectures presented between 1951-1955 and the subsequent book, How
to Do Things with Words, philosopher J.L. Austin introduced the concept of the performative
utterance. This speech act is a statement that performs a certain kind of action or has the capacity
to change or produce reality. The concept of the performative utterance has since provided the
foundation for a wide scope of inquiry not limited to language and philosophy, but extending to
explorations of literature, sexuality, gender, race, and visual art.6
In her book How to Do Things With Art, Dorothea von Hantelmann returns to Austin's
concept of the performative, and building on the work of Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida, she
explores the conditions for the production of artworks that are politically and socially relevant.
According to von Hantelmann, the exhibition is the key factor in the relevance of art to Western
society. The exhibition's “ability to create and cultivate a specific nexus between the individual
and the material object” (10) creates a space for the exchange and development of subjectivities.
Acknowledging the complex and problematic political biases embedded in the exhibition format
—the reinforcement of hegemony in a democratic market society—Von Hantelmann explores
artistic strategies that may act upon this format. As she demonstrates, the exhibition context is
essential to art's praxis and thus it is through strategic engagement within the conventions and
conditions of the exhibition that artists may exercise political agency. Her line of thought is
compatible with a minor practice as it “puts the convention of art's production, presentation and
historical persistence into focus, shows how these conventions are co-produced by any artwork
—independent of its respective content—and argues that it is precisely this dependency on
6 For example, the works of Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Eve Sedwick, and Sarah Ahmed.

6

conventions that opens up the possibility of changing them” (20). Through the minor practice, I
recognize the problems with the institutions and supporting apparatus that structure the art world,
yet I seek to find agency from within. Working from a place of creativity, the minor brings forth
a generative, forward-looking critique.

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8

Chapter 1: The crotch of discursive space

The tone and tenor of contemporary art has been undeniably shaped by theoretical discourse.
Structuralist and post-structural thinking have figured prominently in both the creation of art and
its discursive space. In his book, The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a
Global Context, Grant Kester examines the emergence of post-structural theory in arts discourse
and its ascension to the “theoretical lingua franca in the arts and humanities” (54). Critical of the
imprecise and poorly formed interpretations of post-structural theory, Grant Kester denounces
contemporary art’s “liturgical relationship to theory” (58) in an attempt to mitigate the dominant
influence of post-structural thought that is, in his view, antagonistic to emergent sociallyengaged art practices. Although my practice does not use the same artistic strategies, I am
similarly motivated by a desire to create politically relevant art. Thus by working within the
lingua franca—canonical texts by artists, works of criticism, art theory, the major—I am
situating my project in the veritable crotch of discursive space.
As part of my ongoing series of text-based works, I transform historically significant
texts about art to create new forms. Breaking apart a text is certainly a political gesture and
although I am stripping the original texts of their semantic integrity, I am not engaged strictly in
the refusal of signification. I am disengaging the manner in which the text operates within its
discursive space and realizing through new material possibilities, the possibilities of new
meaning, what professor Tom McDonough in his lecture, The Artist as Typographer identifies as
“bringing forward the possibility of new semantic charges and new futures.” It is an act of
9

negation but also affirmation. While the original documents no longer serve to support contested
historical claims or advance some theory or another, they provide the material to create artwork.
It is a gesture that both acknowledges and denies the preciousness of the source material, and
through the application of my artistic subjectivity, enacts transformation to create new forms. It
is at once a hopeful and critical gesture.
I initiated this project with Donald Judd's essay Specific Objects. I first encountered the
essay in an academic context together with Michael Fried's famous rebuke of minimalism, Art
and Objecthood. Since reworking both texts, I have been slowly picking my way through critical
moments in the trajectory of art theory since minimalism: Death of the Author by Roland
Barthes, The Grid by Rosalyn Krauss, and a primary source for my thesis research, Deleuze and
Guattari's Towards a Minor Literature (an excerpt from which is illustrated above). I am not
producing these works in chronological order or according to a prescribed syllabus, but moving
in and out of texts according to my own logic—there are historical relationships between the
texts or associations drawn based on subject matter, author or even keyword. I am applying an
eclectic, non-linear approach to art history and as the project continues to unfold, it has the
potential to pull together increasingly disparate works. What will emerge is a fractured,
disorienting compendium that sits in contrast to orderly historical narratives.
Working from the original texts, I pick out phrases and words from the source material to
create new forms. As I am not using a systematic approach to word selection, each source text
potentially contains endless iterations and many possible alternative readings. I move through the
source material applying my own artistic subjectivity to select words to build new texts. It is an
10

additive and subtractive process: moving forward, moving backward, charting an unknown path
through the piece. My selection of words and phrases is intended to build rhythmic clusters of
meaning through the use of poetic devices such as alliteration, repetition of sounds and words,
and variation. I pull together words that evoke relationships to draw on new meanings through
their juxtaposition. My texts are ambiguous and potentially humorous. I play with words that
have multiple meanings and the same text may contain contradictory statements. This harkens
back to Deleuze and Guattari's notion of the minor that opposes “a purely intensive usage of
language” in favour of “perfect and unformed expression” (19). My compositions are
indeterminate. I seek to subvert the primacy of the text through artistic play to point to the
contingency of knowledge.
The unused sections of text are removed to reveal a composition of words and phrases
distributed on the page. I strictly adhere to the original word order and do not make further
amendments to the organization of the words. The spaces between are as important as the words
themselves. It is evidence of something removed and an invitation for the reader to “fill in” the
empty spaces. What is removed thus activates the composition and creates a critical resonance
integral to the work.
The network of relations between this series and the text-based projects of avant-garde art
practice, concrete poetry, conceptual art and writing are not easily delineated if only for the
reason that the boundaries of these practices are similarly indiscrete.7 My non-linear and at times
7 See Jamie Hilder's thorough examination of the points of contention and alignment between concrete poetry and
conceptual art in the chapter Concrete Poetry and Conceptual Art: A Difference of Opinions. Robert Fitterman
and Vanessa Place, Notes on Conceptualisms has helped shape my understanding of conceptual writing.

11

incoherent texts are not unlike the experimental works of early modern writers.8 The placement
of the text on the page is evocative of Concrete poetry, yet they also align with the text
experiments of Fluxus artists or early Conceptual works of such artists as Robert Barry and
Lawrence Weiner.
My works are created within a certain structure, but not a strict system per se. The
process is driven by my own subjectivity and commitment to the project. If a linear reading of
the text seems laborious, the production of the texts is equally so. It requires a concentrated effort
and each word selected has the potential to steer the text in an unanticipated direction. This
process adds a dimension of chance as I make my way through the source material.
Provisionality plays a significant role in the formal and conceptual development of my
text works. Although written in a linear fashion, the composition frustrates a linear reading. This
invites a variety of readings as the words may be read in clusters as arranged on the page in a
non-sequential order. Alternative paths through the text may be taken based on the proximity of
words, jumping from cluster to cluster, moving on the diagonal or top to bottom. This variation
demonstrates a permeability that exists in all text: reading and interpretation are not
predetermined. I like to think that a text could potentially contain almost any other text—it is a
container of meaning that can neither be easily fixed nor exhausted.

8 The influential works of Gertrude Stein or Stéphane Mallarmé continue to resonate through the history of
modern art to the contemporary moment.

12

Fig. 2: Troy Gronsdahl, the fact that they are not / insisted / reveal something [Art and Objecthood], 2014-15.
Varied edition, 40 letterpress impressions, cloth-bound, hardcover case, 11 x 10 inches. Detail of sheet.

In the work, the fact that they are not / insisted / reveal something [Art and Objecthood] I
have transposed my composition onto paper using letterpress type. It is a painstaking process as
each small character is handled and placed to build a block of text. After a series of impressions
are created, the text block is dismantled so the next may be assembled. Though the text blocks
could be reassembled, the idiosyncratic placement of text is only approximated, thus making
subsequent editions difficult to reproduce. I think there is something poetic in this rhythm of
activity as the passages of text are composed and destroyed, existing just long enough to create
13

an impression. Focus and care are required to create legible text and over hours and hours of
work, I felt like I somehow came to know the text differently: as if through handling each
character I came to know the text inside and out.
The amount of effort seems to sit in contrast with the nonsensical revelations contained
within the text itself. They contain short instructive texts on how to make art or reflect on the
role of the artist in society. The compositions at times read like overwrought poetry; other times
they feel aphoristic. In my work derived from Art in Objecthood I state: “presence / a function of
aggressiveness / of special complicity / take it and act accordingly” while in my work from
Death of the Author I observe: “in / the failure of / madness / vice / is always sought / as if it
were in the end / the voice of a single person / 'confiding' in us.” The absurdity is summed up in
a bit of advice from my work with Specific Objects: “avoid trees and people.”
For the Fried text, I produced a varied edition printed on both archival and non-archival
papers. If the acid-free, heavy weight rag papers denote serious fine art printing, kraft and manila
papers seem modest or practical; the multi-coloured construction paper is playful, perhaps
irreverent. Paper is a fragile material; the non-archival materials in particular make no claims to
lasting forever. In spite of this, I've taken measures to preserve the works in a hardcover binding,
frame or vitrine. It is the contradiction inherent in the conservational mandate of the museum,
and I recognize the temporal and fleeting nature of art and ideas and my desire to hang onto
them.
The mode of presentation has a significant effect on the reception of the work. I intend
for this work to be presented in two distinct ways. As a collection of sheets gathered in a single
14

volume, the works become book-like. It takes on the intimate ritual of reading: the volume is
handled, opened, pages turned. There is a physical interaction with the art object which moves
the experience from a purely contemplative exercise. The pages are not bound and it is not
necessary to read the pages in sequence. Depending on the whim of the reader, sections could
easily be reconfigured thus lending further variation to the text.

Fig. 3: Troy Gronsdahl, the fact that they are not / insisted / reveal something [Art and Objecthood], 2014-15.
Varied edition, 40 letterpress impressions, cloth-bound, hardcover case, 11 x 10 inches. Detail of sheet in hardcover
case.

Individual sheets or small selections may also be framed and presented as a discrete art
object or part of a small constellation of art works. Placing the work behind glass frustrates the
15

primary function of the book, as the viewer can no longer explore the contents at their own
discretion. By selecting texts to be presented based on their associated meanings, colour or other
organizing principle, I seek to point to the subjective and seemingly arbitrary logic that gives
shape to the art historical record. Why green and not blue? Why this and not that? Who decides
what is seen and what is not? The vitrine, the frame, even the exhibition is a symbolic enclosure
that remove works of art from the realm of the useful and transform their respective contents into
artifacts. The minor seeks to disrupt this performative capture built into the logic of the museum
through incongruence and humour.
In my work, I am addressing what O'Sullivan would refer to as “an already constituted
audience.” Reception is predicated on English literacy and it takes on an added dimension for
viewers with knowledge of art history and art theory. My work thus touches on the same paradox
as other forms of critique: it is ultimately dependent on the very structures it seeks to disrupt. Yet
this is the sphere in which the minor practice must operate. As O'Sullivan observes, the minor
seeks to draw from its audience “a subjectivity still-to-come.” This is not dissimilar to the
function of humour in the minor: it is ultimately contingent on reception that is activated through
mutual recognition. Humour is a key element in a minor practice, not only as mode of
deterritorialization, but ones that also supports collective enunciation. Like minor literature,
humour “produces an active solidarity in spite of skepticism” and may “forge the means for
another consciousness and another sensibility” (17). As I will later elaborate, I consider my use
of humour as gesture or invitation to the audience, a forging of community, even if a small one.

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17

Fig. 5: Troy Gronsdahl, The Framework Series, 2014. Performance documentation, Banff Centre.

18

Fig. 6: Troy Gronsdahl, The Framework Series, 2014. Performance documentation, Banff Centre.

19

Chapter 2: The grammar of disequilibrium

The Framework Series is a conceptually-based sculpture project. Through strategies consistent
with the minor, it seeks to test the performative function of art. Institutional engagement is
critical in realizing the project and the use of modest materials, the provisional qualities of the
structures themselves, and their activation through humour are key properties of the work.
The Framework Series shares the formal characteristics, geometric composition and
material restraint of modern abstract sculpture.9 Consisting of improvised wooden structures, my
sculptures are composed from five to ten individual lengths of wood. They include offcuts,
salvaged, and store-bought home renovation materials ranging in length from one to two metres
with a diameter of 5 to 10 millimetres. The work is realized through the careful placement of
individual components that prop up, lean on or otherwise support the structure. I use a small
number of plastic hand clamps to provide enough stability for the sculpture to stand. The
compositions are intuitive, and developed through a process of trial and error. The structures are
challenging to assemble and prone to collapse.
In a presentation context, the sculpture is to be assembled by curatorial staff or other
designate. I provide all of the necessary components: the appropriate number of clamps and
lengths of wood, and an ambiguous diagram of the structure in its realized state (see fig. 8). I
also provide short written instructions. The following were produced for a presentation at Access
Gallery in Vancouver.
9 I can imagine it could be a modernist nod to the avant-garde sculpture of the Constructivists, perhaps a kind of
Anthony Caro knockoff or a passing flirtation with formalism.

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Fig. 7: Troy Gronsdahl, The Framework Series, 2014. Installation instructions.

The directions for assembly are an integral component of The Framework Series. Although
stated with a matter of fact practicality, I hope to establish the wry tone within which the work
was conceived. I make oblique and playful references to artists' writings and projects by 20th
century avant-garde and conceptual artists.10 Donald Judd famously quipped in his essay Specific
Objects, “a work needs only to be interesting.” Here I facetiously suggest that, “it only has to
look nice.” By implying that a pleasing aesthetic experience is the sole function of the work, and
10 For example, the text works of Fluxus artists such as George Brecht or early conceptual artists such as Lawrence
Weiner.

21

an understated one at that, I hope to raise questions about the role of criticality in artistic work.
Through the written instructions, process of assembly and performance as a sculpture,
The Framework Series intentionally contravenes museological convention. For example, the
placement of art objects is essential to exhibition design and is carefully considered to support
the curatorial premise. In my directions, I reduce the choice of placement to a simple matter of
whether or not it is in the way. Since the sculpture is prone to collapse, it further frustrates the
conservation function of the museum – while refusing the performative obligation of sculpture.11
The direction to avoid spotlights has a duel function. Under uniform lighting conditions, the
shadows are deemphasized and the sculptures flatten out. I have also chosen this wording to refer
to working in “the spotlight.”12 As an artist sometimes operating in the unlit corners of the art
world, perhaps this too, is another productive interpretation of the minor.
As Deleuze and Guattari argue, the minor pushes the deterritorialization of expression
towards “a willed poverty” (19). The restrained, simplified forms serve this underlying
imperative. The materials used in The Framework Series are inexpensive and readily available.
I've applied a gold finish to the plastic hand clamps using spray-paint: a tongue-in-cheek gesture
that winks at the idea of art as a class of luxury goods. Further to this point, my sculptures resist
the spectacular feats of material and scale that have become the norm in a competitive art world
characterized by international art fairs, biennials, and blockbusters. The modest scale and material
poverty of The Framework Series are key values and a way of operating within the minor.
11 A curator shared an anecdote at a studio visit about about one of his former art school instructors who would test
the stability of sculptural works with a kick of his foot.
12 Which I became acquainted with through the writing of academic and theorist Stephen Wright.

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Fig. 8: Troy Gronsdahl, The Framework Series, 2014. Diagram and documentation of studio installation.

In the instance of collapse, the gallery is directed to leave the sculpture in it's fallen state
for the duration of the day. The sticks create geometric compositions on the floor. I like to think
of them as some sort of divination device akin to casting stones. The gallery is directed to
reassemble it each morning before opening, a chore that tests institutional patience and adds
variation to the sculpture. Here, I playfully invoke what Deleuze has referred to as a “grammar of
disequilibrium” (112). Deleuze suggests that if language is considered as a “homogeneous

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system in equilibrium, or close to equilibrium, defined by constant terms and relations” (108)
then variation is only possible through the introduction of perpetual disequilibrium. The minor is
a “grammar of disequilibrium” that tests the performative limits of the major. By creating
sculptures that are susceptible to collapse, I am literally and figuratively bringing disequilibrium
into play to disrupt the “constant terms and relations” that give structure to the institutions of art.
Of course, all of this is a bit funny and humour is an important aspect of my practice. I
am not seeking immediate gratification but rather a gradual opening of meaning through the slow
realization of the humour at play in my work. Similar to Robert Garnett's concept of abstract
humour, I employ a kind of “slow release art joke” (185). My work is typically conceived with
deadpan wit and often employs irony. I am careful to differentiate between my use of irony as a
productive device, and the negative ironic gestures of post-modern practice. As Garnett observes,
“humour is inclusive, ‘superior irony’ is exclusive. The joke is empathetically addressed to a
‘you’. Detached irony is addressed to a ‘them’. You can’t tell a joke to a ‘them’” (186). I
consider my use of self-effacing humour as a gesture towards the viewer, an invitation to relate
through mutual recognition of a shared sensibility.
While the very real potential for the sculpture to collapse charges the work, actual
structural failure creates an unexpected encounter between the viewer and the artwork. It is not
necessarily immediately funny, but as Garnett elaborates, abstract humour “is not necessarily a
laughing matter, it is more like being put in a ‘funny’ or ‘preposterous’ situation, like that of a
critic encountering a work of art that seems to disable one’s prior criteria for the success or
failure of a work of art” (177). The collapse generates a variety of viewer responses. Surprise, an
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almost uniform response, is indicative of the transgressive nature of the sculptures. They're
simply not expected to fall. Embarrassment is another common response. This may point to an
anxiety that people feel about engaging with art which may be exacerbated by feeling implicated
by the collapse. In most cases, laughter alleviates the tension.
The Framework Series employs humour as a means to manipulate the major to create
new expressive forms. The instructions and diagram are deliberately ambiguous to complicate
the installation of the work and invite the subjectivity of the installation personnel. Although the
sculptures could be circulated, exhibited and collected, they are difficult to accurately reproduce
in subsequent iterations. The title itself invites contradiction. A framework refers to an essential
support structure or a system of organizing principles. Yet, these temporary sculptures refuse to
perform as expected. They can be frustrating to install. They are nicely designed, yet not. They
fall over. They fail. Or perhaps more importantly, they don’t not fail. They are contrary,
contradictory, mischievous. This is the minor at work.

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Fig. 9: Troy Gronsdahl, When the cosmos aligned, if only briefly and largely unnoticed. Equinox, total solar eclipse
& perigee moon, March 20, 2015, 4:45 p.m. local time (left) Solstice, June 21, 2015, 10:38 a.m. local time (right),
2015. Cyanotype, 22 x 30 inches. Photo credit: Scott Massey.

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Chapter 3: It is what it is, only not entirely.

Most art historical accounts trace the lineage of monochrome painting to the art of the Russian
avant-garde in the early 20th century. In 1916, Kasimir Malevich announced: “our world of art
has become new, non-objective, pure” (122). His rejection of representation through a radical
simplification of form helped to usher in one of painting's most enduring idioms. He viewed his
early monochromes as a distillation of the medium of painting to achieve pure feeling. Just five
years later, his compatriot Alexander Rodchenko exhibited his series of monochromes that was a
provocation of a different stripe: the end of art. Monochrome painting has since provided a
pliable form, a vessel, a projection surface for modern art's various preoccupations with abstract
form (colour field painting and minimalism in particular). According to which position you
adhere to, the monochrome is meditative, it is transcendent, it is a joke, it is nihilistic, it is a void.
It rejects interpretation, emotion, or just the opposite.
In my recent series of cyanotype images, I draw on the historical associations of
monochrome painting while playing in its ambiguous zones of interpretive possibility.
Cyanotype is a photographic process that produces blue, monochromatic images through the
exposure of a photo-sensitive emulsion to the sun or other source of ultraviolet light. The
technique was first applied in botany using a photogram method to produce images of plant
specimens.13 I am similarly interested in creating a photographic register—in this case of
ultraviolet light itself.
13 English botanist Anna Atkins created a volume of photographic images of plant specimens in 1843.

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The cyanotype images previously depicted were exposed to capture an astrological event
—the vernal equinox which coincided with a total solar eclipse and perigee moon, and the
summer solstice. During the events, I exposed coated paper to both direct and indirect sources of
natural light. The variations in intensity and tone are attributed to variations in available light,
duration of the exposure and slight irregularities in the application of the emulsion. The use of
the cyanotype process is consistent with my use of impoverished materials. It is a practical
photographic medium that does not require a darkroom or developing chemicals and the
popularity of the cyanotype with amateurs is undoubtedly related to the simplicity of its
technique. It is defined as an alternative process—it is photography's other, if you will—and by
using this process, I am rubbing up against the traditional criteria for good fine art photography.
The title is a critical component of this work. By the circumstances of its production, this
image is, in fact, a picture of “when the cosmos aligned, if only for a brief moment and largely
unnoticed.” Yet the claim made by the title cannot be verified by the contents of its image. This
creates a productive incongruity that is characteristic of a minor practice. As Simon O'Sullivan
observes: “A minor art pushes up against the edges of representation; it bends it, forcing it to the
limits and often to a certain kind of absurdity.” My title is not unlike the widely varying, highly
subjective, and difficult to substantiate claims made about monochrome painting.
This riddlic form is a strategy I have explored in previous works and the playful use of
language is a signal to the viewer that there is more going on than first appears. The title brings
together the sort of mystical claims of modern abstract painting with the matter of fact titles of
early conceptual photography. It also alludes to the English language idiom “when the stars
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align.” This phrase can be interpreted as a favourable sign or a set of promising conditions for
success, yet the subsequent phrase “if only for a brief moment and largely unnoticed” suggests
that the opportunity has failed to be fully realized or recognized. I think there is something
poignant and pathetic about this statement. It reflects on the promise and difficulty of artistic
work and this shared anxiety is an empathetic gesture.
My cyanotype monochromes are indexical photographs insomuch as they are a record of
the intensities of ultraviolet light at a specific time and place. Yet they do not have the mimetic
representation of a subject that one might expect from a photograph. This could be considered a
deterritorialization of photography that both denies and affirms its mimetic function. The only
cues to its status as a photograph are the white border that delineates a field of blue and the
information provided on a wall label. Like Ed Ruscha's gas stations and other early conceptual
photographic projects, my cyanotype is what it says it is. I intend to continue the project in a
serial manner akin to other conceptual projects. Although it's no longer prescient or perhaps even
necessary to deconstruct the concept of truth in photography, I like the playful reference to an
earlier conceptual project, which has since assumed a position within the major.

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30

By positioning my work in relation to the art world’s dominant modes of presentation and
representation—the exhibition, the institution, the discursive space of art—I seek to develop a
methodology that is critical, politically relevant, and forward looking. Reflecting on my work
presented in the thesis exhibition, it has occurred to me that there is another dimension of my
work that I have not fully engaged with in my research: affect. Operating in the realm of feeling
or mood, affect is not read but rather experienced. Or it is on the cusp of experience. According
to Lawrence Grossberg, affect is “perhaps the most difficult plane of our lives to define,” but can
be described as “what gives 'color,' 'tone' or 'texture' to our experiences.” Sianne Ngai describes
affect as “a 'significance' that is not reducible to signs and signification” (45).
On first blush, affect might seem to contradict the structures and logic I employ in my
practice; it is not typically associated with the historical precursors of my work. As writer Eve
Meltzer observes in her book, Systems We Have Loved: Conceptual Art, Affect, and the
Antihumanist Turn, art historical accounts tend to discount, downplay or disregard the role of
affect in conceptual art practice. Despite this disavowal, Meltzer claims “affect can't really be
kept down, although it does get relegated to the spaces that our discourse don't attend to” (87).
Though it is an aspect of my work I have been reluctant to address, through observation
and critique I have come to appreciate the important role affect has in the reception of my work.
There are autobiographical and emotional elements in play and the care with which I handle
material seems to call for a certain kind of quiet attentiveness. There is a sensual play between
absence and presence, the perceptible and the imperceptible. In this way, affect works within my
conceptual strategy to draw attention to the ways that meaning is being produced beyond logic.
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Affect operates in aesthetic realm of the possible14 and I am interested in further exploring how
this maybe drawn out in my work, perhaps even as subject matter or material for making art.

Conclusion: Possible Possibilities

Deleuze and Guattari claimed “there is nothing that is major or revolutionary except the minor”
(26). That's the sort of talk that can get a person on a government watch list. The revolutionary
potential in the minor practice is not in the making of placards, although it could be if it was
framed as such. Nor is it the staging of rallies, though under certain circumstances it could be
that too. The revolutionary potential in the minor practice could be expressed in confounding and
strange situations. In funny situations. In grammar that's bad. The minor thrives in moments of
incongruity.
What a minor art practice presents is a set of conditions for art to be socially and
politically relevant. According to Rancière the aesthetic, “has a metapolitics, a manner of ‘doing
politics’ otherwise than politics does” (8). It is within this aesthetic sphere that the minor must
operate. The political biases of the exhibition format, the institution, the major, are not grounds
for unconditional refusal but rather strategic engagement. The major becomes a growing medium
for the production of new subjectivities and possible possibilities.
By working in and between zones of affirmation and dissent, I seek to move critique out
of a place of negation and into one of creativity. Hinging on moments of ambiguity and
14 An idea put forth by Deleuze and Guattari in What is Philosophy?

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estrangement, my practice is less about making sense of things and more about the expressive
possibility of non-sense. It is this potential that gives a minor practice its charge. A minor
practice is not uncomplicated but it is similarly not stuck. It seeks to disrupt the major's
preoccupation with preserving sensible, orderly narratives and predetermined modes of being.
The minor is always in a process of becoming. It is future-oriented and hopefully hopeful.

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Works cited

Araeen, Rasheed. “Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the Twenty First Century.” Third Text 23.5
(2009): 679-684. Print.
Deleuze, G. “He Stuttered.” Essays Critical and Clinical, trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael A.
Greco. London: Verso, 1998. Print.
Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari. Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature, trans. D. Polan. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Print.
___. What Is Philosophy?, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994. Print.
Fitterman, Robert and Vanessa Place. Notes on Conceptualisms. New York City: Ugly Duckling
Presse, 2009. Web.
Foster, Hal. Design and Crime: And Other Diatribes. London: Verso, 2003. Print.
Fraser, Andrea. “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique.” Artforum Sep.
2005: 278+. Print.
Garnett, Robert. “Abstract Humour and Humorous Abstraction.” Deleuze and Contemporary Art.
Ed. Stephen Zepke and Simon O’ Sullivan. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2010. Print.
Grossberg, Lawrence. “Is There a Fan in the House? The affective sensibility of fandom.” The
adoring audience: fan culture and popular media. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Hantelmann, Dorothea. How to Do Things with Art: The Meaning of Art's Performativity.
Zurich: JRP Ringier, 2010. Print.
Hilder, Jamie. Designed Words for a Designed World: The International Concrete Poetry
Movement, 1955-1971. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 2010. Web.
Judd, Donald. “Specific Objects.” Arts Yearbook 8 1965: 74-82. Judd Foundation. n. pag. Web.
14 Feb. 2014.
Kester, Grant. The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Print.

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Malevich, Kasimir. “Suprematist Manifesto.”100 Artists' Manifestos. Ed Alex Danchev.
London: Penguin, 2011. Print.
McDonough, Tom. “The Artist as Typographer.” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York
City, United States. 11 Jan. 2011. Address.
Meltzer, Eve. Systems we have loved: conceptual art, affect, and the antihumanist turn. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2013. Print.
Ngai, Sianne. Ugly Feelings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. Print.
O'Sullivan, Simon. “Notes Towards a Minor Practice.” Drain: Journal of Contemporary Art and
Culture, Oct 2005: n. pag. Web.
Rancière, Jacques. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. Steven Corcoran. New York:
Continuum, 2010. Print.
___. “The Thinking of Dissensus: Politics and Aesthetics.” Reading Rancière. Ed. Paul
Bowman and Richard Stamp. New York: Continuum, 2011. Web
Tanke, Joseph J. “What is the Aesthetic Regime?” Parrhesia, Number 12, 2011 . Web. 29
Mar. 2015.
Wright, Stephen. “Inversions, Insertions, Implications: A conversation with theorist Stephen
Wright.” 18th Street Arts Centre. Santa Monica, United States. 2013. Web.
___. Toward a Lexicon of Usership. Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, 2013. Web.

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