Preliminary Notes on the Pragmatic of Works: Daniel Buren

Author(s): Jean-François Lyotard and Thomas Repensek

Source: October, Vol. 10 (Autumn, 1979), pp. 59-67
Published by: The MIT Press
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 PreliminaryNotes on the
PragmaticofWorks:Daniel Buren

JEAN-FRANQOIS LYOTARD

translatedby THOMAS REPENSEK

Any work may be read, and thereare many ways to read a work.This does
not imply thatall possible readingsmay be applied to everywork,nor thatevery
reading may be applied to all works. Neither does it mean that the act of
interpretation has lost its value. Ratherit announces thedisintegrationof critical
typologies, a breakdown in the conventionsthatseparatekinds of interpretation.
As thecontemporaryartscan no longerbe organizedand identified byAristotelian
categories, so the interpretationsbrought to bear on them can no longer be
distributedamong thevarious typesofdiscoursewhich have been used to speak in
thepast. Each of thesetypeshas come to be seen notonlyas a disciplinebut also as
a deficiency:art history,art criticism,aesthetics,the philosophy of art, not to
exclude fromthe fieldour homines novi: the politician of the Left,the semioti-
cian, the psychoanalyst.

At thesame timeit does not necessarilyfollowthatbecause anythingmaybe

read and readingmay be anything,theworkescapes designation,thebenefaction
of meaning; rather,designation is an inevitable result of reading, obtained
through a relentlesslyimaginative elaboration and use of letters,words, and
syntactical structures.Consider the sophistication of Starobinski's so-called
psychoanalyticreadingof Oedipus Rex withHamlet, or theburgeoningMarxism
of Adorno's combination of Schbnbergand Stravinsky!Perhaps Adorno didn't
know his Freud,nor Starobinskihis Marx (nor his Adorno).But we can no longer
expecta single view of a collectionof worksto revealone completeand exclusive
truth.Traditionally the goal of art criticismand theoreticalwritingin general,
this ideal is unable to survive(if it ever trulyexisted)the dissolutionby contem-
poraryartisticpracticeof the principle of theproperpoint of view (or audition).

The arts cannot claim a unifiedfield:not only do theyspeak numerous

languages, but withineach language different
gamesare played. Call language all

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60 OCTOBER

systemsof signs transmittedby means of a specificmedium and support:pigment

on a two-dimensionalsurface,light falling on an object, the impression of
photons on filmsensitiveto theirmovement.While withinsuch a language many
"sentences"may be generated,it is possible to group these"sentences"according
to categoriescorrespondingto Wittgenstein'slanguage games.
But how manykindsof sentenceare there?Say assertion,question,and
command?-There are countlesskinds:countlessdifferent kindsof use
of whatwe call "symbols,""words," "sentences."And thismultiplicity
is not somethingfixed,given once forall; but new typesof language,
new language-games,as we may say, come into existence,and others
become obsolete and get forgotten.(We can get a roughpictureof this
fromthe changes in mathematics.)'

The languages of artmaybe distinguishedaccordingto theirmaterial(taken

in theimmediatesenseofmediumand support).In a givenlanguage, paintingfor
example, many games are possible. If we limit ourselves to the intelligible
categoriesproposed by Wittgensteinforlanguage games, we may imagine
a painting thatcommands
a painting thattells a story
a painting thatdefines
a painting thatquestions and answers
a painting thatis its own adornment
a painting thatis its own painting
a painting thatquotes.
But such a list remains subordinateto the linguisticmodel. There is no reason
whatsoeverthatan example drawn fromlanguage should become a paradigm (in
the modernsense).
Reversethe situationthen. If anythingmay be takento exemplifythe game
of language, it is literature,poetry,indeed all the linguistic arts including
scientificidioms-wherever experimentationtakesplace. What is literature? That
immense laboratory of experience where language games are produced-a
conspiratorial formulation against communication. Understood in this way,
literaturecomprisesthe vernacularas well: to it belongs the inventionof slang,
argot,jargon, idiolects, "tales." Both the Butor of Mobile and the Guyotat of
Prostitution-each in his own way-defy the communicabilityof the word.

For everygame (of language, painting,cinema... ) thereexistsa group of

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein,Philosophical Investigations,trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, New York,

Macmillan, 1953,p. Ile.

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The Pragmatic of Works 61

actual or possible effectswhich constitutesits pragmatic. For example, the

intradiegeticand homodiegeticpropertiesof thenarrativeapparatus of Books VIII
through XII of the Odyssey cannot be described without an analysis of the
displacementseffectedin the position of the narrators(Odysseus, Homer), the
audience (the Phaeacians, Homer's audience to which we as readersbelong), and
the diegesis (what happens to Odysseus among the Phaeacians according to
Homer, what happens to Odysseus according to Odysseus beforehis arrival
among the Phaeacians).
An artfulgame requires not only dismantlingthe narrativeapparatus but
also understandingits effect.The pragmaticwill provideour termsof analysis.

Interpretationitself should be reconsideredin this light: whatever its

content,it is one effectof a game of visible forms.One result of cinema and
contemporarypainting is that theygive rise to speech,elicit it about themselves.
Yet this effectdoes not necessarilyapply universally.If,forexample, we were to
subscribeto Leroi-Gourhan's theorythatfiguresin paleolithic cave paintingsare
pictographs,plastic designataof gesturesaccompanyinga narrative,thenwe must
not see themas copies or representations of absentobjects.The narrativesare not
about theimages themselves,but what theyreferto; thefiguresdo not give riseto
interpretation, theymerelyillustratea story.
If interpretationis an effectof the work,and if the interpretation is itselfa
work,the theorythatguides interpretation may be seen as a filter,
a transforming
agent or operative placed between the work and its effect,that is, betweenthe
interpretedwork and the interpretation.This agent has the obvious effectof
transforming the receiverof theworkof artinto thesenderoftheinterpretation of
thatwork.It also transforms thesentencewhich constitutestheworkinto a quote,
the image of the work within the sentenceconstitutedby the commentary.
These two resultsare so elementarythattheyseemto be inevitableno matter
what theorymay be at stakein the interpretation, thatis, whatevermeaning may
be promoted by a particularreading. They must exist, although theirspecific
nature may vary. They depend on the operational apparatus (theory)inserted
betweentheworkand itsinterpretation, allowing passage fromtheplasticworkto
the discursivework which interpretsthe former.Interpretationhere becomes a
language game thatfunctionsin relationto a plastic game; it is thenatureof this
correlationthat articulatesthe question, what do we do when we speak about a
work?We do not assign meaning to the work; we transform it.

Since interpretation is a pragmaticeffect,the work,by being reduced to its

own effect,
may be said to be its own interpretation.
The workoughtperhaps to be

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62 OCTOBER

presentat least as the absence to which the interpretation refers.But it is in fact

only the interpretationthat is present (and not only for Art & Language).
Presentingthe work and presenting the effect of the work,however,are not the
same thing. In the presentation of the effectof the work,therecipientreceivesnot
the message, but the reception of the message through the intermediaryof a
primaryrecipient.Is it not the initial receptionthatis at issue here?In thiscase,
the work can be said to have no efficacy in and of itself,but throughits effect: the
interpretation which finallyreplaces it. This efficacy to the second power is such
thattherecipienthimselfbecomesa metarecipient,and thepragmaticof thework
a metapragmatic.

Adorno repeatedlystatesthatmodernartwas made possible bythedeclineof

metaphysics:Schdnbergand Beckettin Hegel's vacant succession.Is theincorpo-
ration of the pragmaticof the work into the work itselfa resultof this crisisof
metaphysics?The pragmaticescapes significationif it is truethatit concernsthe
meaning that a sentencemay lose when it is described,still remainingintactby
virtueof its signification.This aspect of meaningdeterminesthatI standup when
someone says to me "Stand up"; yetdisappearswhen I read thesentence"He said,
'Stand up'"; or, what amounts to the same thing, when I assume that the
command was not addressed to me. Does art, by giving pride of place to its
pragmatic,revealhow littleit is concernedwithwhat a workmeans?In any case it
declaresits interestin those situationswhich call forththe efficacyof the work.
Daniel Buren uses the same materialin all his works:canvas or paper with
alternatingcolored and whiteverticalstripesof equal width.It is at theperiphery,
however,thatBuren carrieson his experimentationwith thepragmaticcondition
of thework:on thereverseside of thecanvas, its materialand moral supports,the
artisticconfinesof the museum and gallery,and what Buren calls the cultural
limits.Each of his worksfromthelast tenyearsis an attemptto reveala pragmatic
moment in the efficacy of the work. By pragmaticmomentI mean operational
devices such as the following:
figure/ground:the same stripedpaper taken as a ground for other works
and/or as the work itself(Documenta 5, Kassel, June-October1972);
inside/outside:the part of a roll of stripedcanvas hung indoors takenas the
work; the part extendedout a window and suspendedacross a neighboringstreet
takenas an advertisingor indeterminatesign (New York, October 1973);
present/absent:the same piece of stripedcloth placed in exactlythe same
position relativeto the North Pole in threedifferent museums (Otterlo,Amster-
dam, Eindhoven, May-June1976).

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The Pragmatic of Works 63

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 The Pragmatic of Works 65

We would be mistaken to assume that the metapragmaticfunction of

contemporaryworks of art is the critique of ideological superstructures, the
calling into question of and
institutions, other critical of
strategies that order.
Buren,who once held such a position,concludesone ofhis recenttextsas follows:
The work in progresshas the ambition,not of fittingin more or less
adequately with thegame, nor even of contradictingit, but of abolish-
ing its rules by playing with them, and playing another game, on
anotheror the same ground,as a dissident.2
The functionof the work of art,therefore, is not reconciliation,enlighten-
ment,or veracity,but the inventionof anotherlanguage game, anotherartifice.
In a certainsenseeverywork,insofaras it is placed withinan artisticcontext,
is dogmatic:it teacheshow to see and to understanda workofart.In thissense,the
museum and the gallery are the new Academy prescribingthe discourse of
knowledge. Here the metapragmaticfunctionsas a didactic. In Buren's work,
however,the paradox of a nondogmaticart is assumed.
Buren uses the metapragmaticin anotherway. His art is the exposition of
the hidden pragmatic of art, veiled by the contextof exposition. But since the
pragmaticis coveredover,almostinvisible,itsexpositionmustbe so as well. "Any
workattemptingso ambitious an undertaking,"he writescalmlyin the textcited
above, "obviouslydoesn't get seen or if it does, it is attacked,sometimescensored,
always disavowed, which is normal under the circumstances."3For Buren,
support, context,and ideology are all the more emphatic when they are not
directlyperceived; and the same may be said of theirexposition. We are not
dealing here with education but with the refinement of the strategiesthat give
efficacyto a work of art. But to what purpose if not to be seen? What is the
pragmaticof this metapragmaticwork?

In a group exhibitionat the Palais des Beaux-Artsin Brussels,January8 to

February3, 1974,eightof Buren'sblue-and-whitestripedcanvases,each measuring
two and one-halfby fivemeters,werehung horizontallybeneaththe glass roofof
threeconnectinghalls of the museum. Buren's canvases remainedin place until
June 1975withoutalteration,exceptfortwo periodsofone montheach when they
were takendown. From July 1975 to June 1977 occurreda second "developmen-
tal" phase, during which the canvases were modifiedand rearrangedin various
ways. Finally, on September6, 1977,fortwo hours,from6 to 8 PM, the canvases
were reexhibitedin theiroriginal arrangement,this time unaccompanied by the

2. Daniel Buren,Reboundings, trans.Philippe Hunt, Brussels,Daled &cGevaert,1977,p. 73.

3. Ibid., p. 72.

Daniel Buren. PH Opera. 1974-77.

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66 OCTOBER

work of any otherartist.In all, a forty-four-monthexperiment,some threeand a

half years.
The outcome was a booklet produced by Buren entitledPH Opera (PH =
peinturehorizontale),bound in red,in which all thestagesof thework(26 + 1) are
described.Photographs,diagrams,and graphsillustratethetextwhich is preceded
with an introductionby the DirectorGeneral of the Soci&tedes Expositions,K.J.
Geirland. Insertedseparatelyon greenpaper chosen to complementthe color of
the coveris a commentaryby BirgitPelzer.
Although the work meritsdetailed analysis, the followingpoints may be
noted provisionally:
1. Buren shapes the medium: dyes and paints were used in the alterations
effected in the second and followingstages.
2. Buren shapes the support: the canvas was hung not verticallybut
horizontallylike a tent.
3. Buren shapes the subject: although there was no visible subject, the
subjectis logicallyconceivable-the visibilityofthepaintedwork.The subjectis a
question thatbears on the entirepragmatic.
4. Buren shapes the space: the museum (in otherinstances,the gallery)is
part of the pragmaticof the visibilityof the work.
5. Buren shapes the time of exposition: the duration of the exposition
properlyspeaking, that is, the reexposition,was short(two hours), that of the
unperceivedexposition immeasurablylong. From experiencewe know that the
timeof expositionformsa partof theculturallimitsofvision. It maybe necessary
to conceive of various temporalaxes: the durationof the event,its periodicity,its
order.

Workis to be understoodhere as a set of strategiesbroughtto bear on an

aesthetic.This is not a transcendentalaesthetic.Is it anti-ideologicalthen?I am
afraid that the word, formerlyused by Buren, is a comfortablereversionto the
opposition between ideology and criticism.By locating the problem in the
confinesof the senses, Buren's work does not take issue with artistictheory,but
with thesensiblepresenceof theworkof art,and forthisreasonhis is an aesthetic
in the Kantian sense,occurringbeforean analyticor dialectic.In like mannerhis
work is not criticalin the sense of Brecht,Adorno, Marx, or even Kant.
Buren'sworkis not Marxistsince Marxistcriticaltheoryand practiceoppose
the irrational surfaceof things with an underlyingrationalityattemptingto
emerge.I assume that today Buren,like his contemporariesworthyof the name,
would want to knowjust what thisrationalityof the visibleis thatis being stifled
byits perceptualframework(pigment,frame,support,exhibitionspace, etc.) and
fromwhich it is attemptingto freeitself.For Burenthereis no primaryview in a
hierarchyof vision. Nor does he recognizea priori categoriesof space and time.

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The Pragmatic of Works 67

Today's cinematicspatiotemporalvision-binocular, intermittent, serial-differs

radicallyfromtheoptical orderrepresentedbyAlbertiand Dfirer:we could hardly
allow ourselvesto see in a CUzanne(I am thinkingof Merleau-Ponty),or a Buren,
the transcendentalgivens of vision.
What is lacking todayis a concept of naturethatwould make possible the
formationof an aesthetic,and yetthe need foran aestheticis felt,an aestheticnot
groundedin a realityof the senses.

Painting game and language game are only analogous terms.This does not
mean thatpainting speaks nor thatlanguage chromatizes.Yet it does suggestthat
artists today are engaged not in the deconstructionof significationsbut in
extendingthe limits of sense perception:making visible (or audible) what now
goes unobserved,throughthealterationof sensedata, perceptionitself.The same
question may be asked ofsenseperceptionthatis asked oflanguage: when maywe
say thatit is complete?

By incorporatingits pragmatic,even producingit, the workrevealshow it

says something,or how it is made to say something.The only messagethework
must conveyis how it conveysits message. Of course this metamessagein turn
may become the object of devotion,belief:a new faithin processedinformation,
renewedhope in communication.
A work of art may perhaps be called bad wheneverit elicitsbelief;thenit is
not of its time.Even if it incorporatesits pragmatic,it remainsmerelyamusing. It
does not communicatehow to communicatebut the inverse:how to believe in
communication.The worksays,"You will not understandme"; or perhaps only,
"It will taketimeto understandme"-an aspectofthealterationthatit necessarily
imposes on temporalform.

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