Subjects and Objects: Quick Notes on the State of Art History

Abstract

In his book Work and Commentary (1973) Victor Burgin, in speaking of changes in the discourse on artwork, wrote the following:

• Neurath spoke of science as a boat which is in the process of reconstruction while simultaneously being kept afloat - a plank-by-plank procedure retaining at any one time the greater bulk of the vessel. The art community tends to behave as if it is in a similar sort of boat, but the reconstruction is not an orderly one. Passengers on the upper deck are irritable because the work keeps them awake. The workers quarrel over what should be done and occasionally hammer each other. Others complain that the results are beginning to be unrecognizable as a boat.

We should have to study together, genetically and structurally, the history of the road and the history of writing. J. Derrida, Freud & the Scene of Writing

A system is nothing more than the subordination of all aspects of the universe to any one aspect. Even the phrase ‘all aspects’ is rejectable, since it supposes the impossible addition of the present and of all past moments. J. L. Borges, Labyrinths