The Mad Reading the Mad: A Crip Reading of Agnes Martin’s Grids

Utilizing psychoanalytic theory that frames madness as a gift and asset, in conjecture with mad and crip theory, this paper models access intimacy by examining the predominant discourse surrounding Agnes Martin’s grids, while also offering a crip reading of her work.

After Martin’s death and the public disclosure of her history with mental illness and institutionalization, critics have predominately discussed her grids as an example of a mentally ill artist using her work to find peace and order in her troubled mind. Martin’s long-time agent even describes her work as void of ideas and full of emotion. Through this paper, I consider the mainstream critiques of Martin’s grids as ablenormative readings of her work, and I challenge readings that assume mad minds do not have the ability to provide critical insights. Specifically, I deconstruct the assumption that a mad artist’s work is devoid of ideas because it invokes emotion, as the same assumption is not made for a sane artist’s work.

Through my alternative approach, I propose a reading of Martin’s work as a formulated critique and mirror of the sane world’s obsession with rule and order. Martin’s mind allowed her to see the world differently, to approach her artistic medium differently, and to interpret the outside world as lacking in valuable acceptance of disorder. By approaching mad artists’ work from the perspective of mad theory, artists, art historians, and art professionals have the potential to make the art world not only accessible but an active embodiment of access intimacy.