Art is a cultural system of signification. Its essence derives from cultural understanding and a discursive understanding. Since the meaning that exists within a sentence is only defined by the definitions of its individual elements, the meaning of art is defined by the system. Meaning is in the system.
Meaning, being ambiguous, can never be defined in one thought, or sentence, or work of art. Art requires the definitive system and the discursive context in order to establish its meaning.
The path to meaning is not accomplished within an individual work of art. Artworks themselves are meaningless and systemic. Without the discourse and the theoretical support, individual works of art establish no meaning because they exist only as individual signs within a system. This theoretical discourse is essential and unsupportable without the system of signs."
From an original text by M. Cameron Boyd, © Copyright 2006.
