Reflexivity

From Joseph Kosuth: The Pay of the Unsayable: A Preface and Ten Remarks on Art and Wittgenstein, 272. The desire to understand cultural fomration, and particularly art, in relation to language is the initial foundation to actualize a Wittgensteinian insight: drawing out the relation of art to language began the production of language whose very function it was to show, rather than say. Such artworks function in a way which circumvents significantly much of what limits language. Art, it can be argued, describes reality. But, unlike language, artworks--it can be argued--describe how they describe it. Granted, art can be seen here as self-referential, but importantly, not meaninglessly self-referential. What art shows in such a manifestation is, indeed, how it functions. This is best revealed in works which feign to say, but do so as an art proposition and reveal the difference (while showing its similarity) with language. Return to Threads and Quotes * Critical Practice Lexicon * Practice Literature * Threads and Quotes * Main Page

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