Viewing • Positions

An easel painting was created for the purposes of a presentation that prevents looking at its other side. An object that is not supposed to be visible from all sides makes its own status as an object dubious. In the modern era, artists began to recognize this as a problem of art’s self-definition and its place in history and culture. They felt bound to create situations intended to benefit an understanding of this problem. This led to an expansion of the themes of artists’ awareness of the problem in the wake of which the institutional framework of art and the cultural and political self-understanding of its viewers could be addressed. The present book presents this historical process in selected stages of its evolutionary dynamic.