Conceptual Art: The Visual and Verbal Semiosis Interplay

Abstract

AbstractThe relationship between the visual and the verbal in conceptual art is a particularly fruitful instantiation of intersemiosis. In this article, we discuss conceptual artwork interpretation on the basis of this relationship and consider issues of temporal precedence, performativity, and illocutionary force in conjunction with conceptual art immateriality and self-referentiality. Invoking data from a museum-based project, we argue that the viewer-text possesses a key hermeneutic role in an interpretation process encompassing the two sign systems.