“If one wanted to make a work of art devoid of meaning, it would be impossible because we’ve already given meaning to the work by indicating that it’s a work of art.”

Joseph Kosuth, “Introduction” in Art After Philosophy and After: Collected Writings, 1960–1990 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991); cited in: Thierry Mortier. " Semiotics as Art: Kosuth http://www.semionaut.net/semiotics-as-art-joseph-kosuth/," Sunday, 1 July 2012.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 4, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If one wanted to make a work of art devoid of meaning, it would be impossible because we’ve already given meaning to th…" by Joseph Kosuth?
Joseph Kosuth photo
Joseph Kosuth 11
American conceptual artist 1945

Related quotes

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“To leave the reader free to decide what your work means, that’s the real art; it makes the work inexhaustible.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

"The magician" by Maya Jaggi in The Guardian (17 December 2005) http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/childrenandteens/story/0,,1669112,00.html
Context: Sometimes one’s very angry and preaches, but I know that to clinch a point is to close it. To leave the reader free to decide what your work means, that’s the real art; it makes the work inexhaustible.

George MacDonald photo

“A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

The Fantastic Imagination (1893)
Context: "Suppose my child ask me what the fairytale means, what am I to say?"
If you do not know what it means, what is easier than to say so? If you do see a meaning in it, there it is for you to give him. A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter that neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it do not even wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name written under it will not serve you much.

Joseph Kosuth photo
Andrei Tarkovsky photo

“No one component of a film can have any meaning in isolation: it is the film that is the work of art.”

And we can only talk about its components rather arbitrarily, dividing it up artificially or the sake of theoretical discussion.
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 114

Gerhard Richter photo
Claude Debussy photo

“Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

As quoted in Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought (1992) by John Paynter, p. 590
Unsourced variant: Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.

Susan Sontag photo
Oscar Wilde photo

Related topics