The Creator, the Viewer and the Appropriator

 The Creator, the Viewer and the Appropriator

In the writing Meaning, Identity, Embodiment: The uses of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology in Art History Amelia Jones describes multiple different type of creator and viewer relationships, how origin and identity correlate all while referencing French man Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s collection of theories and ideals. She starts off her writing with a powerful statement that there is a “.. hallowed notion of the female body as a site of human generation, the ultimate “origin” of life and meaning.. (pg 4).”

Ameila Jones begins her writing by discussing the relationship between identity and origin. She talks about how works become the identity of authors. She talks about how the creator or author’s interpretation is exactly a representation of self-identity. Jones makes very obvious assumptions about how a work can be expressive of identity. Then Jones spends the length of her writing referencing Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s works in correlation with her opinions on the embodiment of subjects. Merlaeu-Ponty talked about something called the “flesh of the world” or the relationships we share with matter. Which is interesting to think about because we as humans rely heavily on inanimate objects as well as animant organisms. Things that are inanimate include emotions and artwork, even more so emotions are not tangible and art can make emotions something tangible or art can make emotions “flesh.” Changing the format of something changes the sensory experience of something as well. The most important thing to understand about Merleau-Ponty’s ideas is not only does the viewing of a subject determine meaning but the value of the subject in the real world. Essentially he is saying a subject and an object are infinitely intertwined. 

One and Three Chairs, Joseph Kosuth, 1945

This writing by Jones and her references of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ideas, remind me of this conceptual art work done by Joseph Kosuth called One and Three Chairs. This work includes a photograph of a chair, the definition of a chair and a tangible wooden folding chair. Everything is a chair just in a different form. Each form also makes a different contribution to the world and the beholder or user has a different relationship flesh to flesh with these “chairs.” A question one could ask themself when looking at this is: which of these chairs is the most accurate representation of a chair? Since Kosuth didn't make the chair, take the photograph or write the dictionary entry, one could question if this is even art at all. Which is exactly the point of conceptual art, it pushes the physical boundaries of a work, the idea is the most important and the physical work is less important. Craftsmanship can even be neglected. If the physical work is less important, how does conceptual art fit into Merleau-Ponty’s idea that a work's meaning has something to do with its value in the world. Usually things of high value have great craftsmanship, are made of expensive materials and worked on for extensive amounts of time. But ideas cannot be weighed, picked up, or poked so how do we determine the physical value of something that is not tangible. At the end of the writing Jones explains that it is a combination of what is animate and inanimate, what is tangible and what is not that helps her make sense of the world. 

“Moma Learning.” MoMA, https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/joseph-kosuth-one-and-three-chairs-1965/. 

Jones. Amelia. Meaning, Identity, Embodiment: The uses of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology in Art History. Art and Thought. Chapter 4. 01 January 2003.