Craig Owens: An Interview

Craig Owens (1950-1990) was a critic who wrote and lectured extensively on contemporary art. He showed particular interest in the issues of photography, postmodernism, feminism, and Marxist thought. A former associate editor for October and senior editor for Art in America, as well as professor of art history at Yale University and Barnard College, his writings were collected in Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power, and Culture (1994). Owens died of an AIDS-related illness in 1990.

“I’m arguing for an art that is culturally relevant. I’m arguing for an art that does not remain content to address the problems of 19th Century society. I expect art to mediate my cultural experience,” Owens says in this interview with Lyn Blumenthal.

A historical interview originally recorded in 1984, edited in 2010 with support from the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund.