The Artist as Public Intellectual

In reading all the theoretical contributions to this book, an essentially common idea of the social can be observed which is of fundamental importance for a new definition of artistic production: a process-related order of institutionalized actions, including the linguistic actions to which individuals are exposed.For here, in the repetition of such institutionalized acts, is where subjects first emerge. Objects, whether they be objects of everyday use or whole architectures, are like molds which provide for the intitutionalization of actions. The artist emerges as a social figure, as the product of a society and the agent of political interests. From this point of view, the status of objects, the status of the work is not the expression of a circumscribed meaning, but an instrument of subject formation. The opposition of theory and practice becomes obsolete. Subject and object are meaning written into actions.