Resumen de Intention(s)
Part of a symposium on writing and the history of art. The writer discusses the problems associated with the art historian's separation of the work and the intention of the artist. Focusing on conceptual art, he argues that if artists' intentions are denied at their inception, then their responsibility for the meaning they generate in the world as an artist is also nullified. Discussing the period of the 1960s, he defends the primacy of the intention of the artist and the increasing importance of writing by artists on their work. He examines the “intentions” of art historians and suggests that from certain perspectives, it is the role of the art-historical process to locate the value of art in the cadavers of passing artistic forms and materials, an institutionalizing process that severs the language from its speaker so that it can give up its meaning to the market.
