Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

Modernist works are obvious candidates for inclusion in the class of works which are denoted
rather than denoting. None ofthe appearances ofthese works may be said, even metaphorically,
to belong within a language. “Formal language” is that technical branch ofnatural language
which is used to describe the works. The organizations ofmarks which constitute the
works themselves are not analogous to a language; at their most coherent they represent variations
upon loosely expressed compositional conventions—a quasi-syntax without semantics.
However, the class ofworks which are denoted is by no means confined to abstract art, it also
includes that ubiquitous format—the “readymade.”
A bottle-rack does not function as a sign in any language, it denotes nothing but is itself
“denoted as” art. The information it originally communicated has since decayed; it functions
now as the historical precedent endorsing a presentational strategy which might be expressed:
“By definition, an art object is an object presented by an artist within the context ofart. Therefore
any object which meets these conditions may serve as an art object.”
Against the above background assertion, foreground activity takes the form of an attempt
to find objects which are a priori least expected but yet which a posteriori will appear
historically inevitable. However, within the given framework, a bottle-rack, a bridge, or the
planet Jupiter all have equivalent status with any other perceptible body. Once this governing
principle has been grasped, the ability to predict the imminent choice ofobject domain
is greatly increased and so the information transmitted is proportionately decreased. The
recent widespread uses ofphotography and natural language very often function as ostensive
definitions in regard to a found object. A photograph of a bridge, or the word “bridge,” are
operationally ostensive here; 3 similarly, where objet trouvé is replaced by évenement trouvé, the
phrase “building a bridge” also, in the final analysis, functions ostensively if no other information
is supplied.
There is, then, a sense in which both abstract art and “operationally ostensive” postminimal
art place the percipient in almost identical situations—he is simply presented with
an object upon which he may impose entirely his own interpretation. 4 What is left to subjective
interpretation in “ostensive” art is what is being explicitly referred to in the percipient’s apprehension
ofthe denoted object—the message is ambiguous. The situation may change when
the work is not the only thing denoted but in turn selectively denotes aspects ofan object
domain—when it serves as a type of definite description.
A definite description “. . . does not indicate all properties ofthe object, and thus replace
concrete perception; on the contrary, it actually appeals to perception. Also, definite descriptions
do not even list all essential characteristics, but only as many characterizing properties as
victor burgin rules of thumb 249