Summary
76
The Idea of Painting
Fall 2012
Painting has more often than once been declared dead, yet it has nevertheless remained at the heart of artistic practices. The revival of interest that painting seems to be enjoying today has thus inspired the magazine esse arts + opinions to further explore this phenomenon. What to think of the dramatic “reappearance” of gestuality and technical virtuosity in the practice of the medium? Also, what can be said of the general scepticism directed towards painting for its supposed “natural” complicity with the art market? What about the notions of the window, the screen, and tableau, which have provided painting with its various theoretical models throughout history?
Editorial
Feature
Flirting with Death: Dispatches Along 19th to 21st Century Painting
The Object of the Idea
Guy Pellerin : Painting Distance (A Mental Construction Made Visible)
Stéphane La Rue, Color as Illusion of Painting
Blind Spots, Caesurae and Other Archival Lacunae
Dark Thoughts: Jinny Yu Starts Where Painting Ends
Relics as New Monuments: Destroyed painting
Performative art follows painting’s footsteps. The case of Vanessa Beecroft
Derek Sullivan More Young Americans
Body and Chaos in Christine Major’s Recent Work
The Animated World of Marina Roy
Portfolios
Columns
Reviews
Young Critics
Current Issue
Immersion
Winter 2026
This issue is interested in all forms of immersion in contemporary art. How are artists critically engaging with immersive technologies? Conversely, what kinds of practices are challenging technology in their pursuit of immersion? How are these experiences breaking down the boundaries between spectator, body, and art? We put forward proposals that rely on listening and sustained attention rather than on amplification and sensory overload – works using devices that are sometimes relatively simple and non-invasive, sometimes a little more elaborate, but in which participation is, with a few nuances, neither passive nor devoid of critical thinking.
Cover: doux soft club
bleu de lieu, 2023-2024.
Photo: Cléo Sjölander, courtesy of the artists