ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the conditions of possibility for an understanding of weak painting to be advanced in the United States (US) between 1968 and 1978. It establishes the salient aspects of Gianni Vattimo’s ideas together with an initial consideration of its imbrication with late modernist painting in the US during the ten years that historically frames the study. The book focuses on Sam Gilliam’s Drape paintings with respect to the artistic milieu within which they were produced and, in some respects, remained antagonistic towards. It considers how Harmony Hammond’s weakened form of painting was able to develop an approach that no longer was beholden to the so-called strong theories of formalist art criticism as they had worked to shore up the position of post-war modernist abstraction in the US.
