Page 55 - Studio International - May 1971

Rules of thumb Our prevailing orthodoxy is that art signifies
nothing. In presenting my own interpretation
Victor Burgin of this dogma I shall refer to a distinction which
I hope is more tenable than the current
`object/non-object' dichotomy.
. . all the devices at the artist's disposal are so Art's primary situation is not unique to art. It
many signs . . . the function of a work of art is is that in which a person, or group of persons, by
to signify an object, to establish a significant certain displays, seeks to alter the state of
relationship with an object.' apprehension of a second person or group of
Claude Lévi-Strauss1 persons. From this undramatic assertion it
follows that the empirically observable
differences between types of art are primarily
differences of type, scope, and use of displays.
`Sign' may not yet be substituted for 'display'.
`Sign' implies a corollary thing signified, but in
`abstract' painting and sculpture a work has no
apparent significance but is rather itself an
object of signification. As artists and critics
connected with Modernism will insist that the
unique art object itself must be brought into the
proximity of our senses it should be clear that it
is the object which is signified and that
signification here takes the form of ostensive
definition.2 Modernist works are obvious
candidates for inclusion in the class of works
which are denoted rather than denoting. None
of the appearances of these works may be said,
even metaphorically, to belong within a language.
`Formal language' is that technical branch of
natural language which is used to describe the
works. The organisations of marks 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 of works
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
of art. 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 of object domain is greatly
increased and so the information transmitted is
proportionately decreased. The recent
widespread uses of photography 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 here3; similarly, where
objet trouvé is replaced by évenement trouvé, the

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