IS THE CONCEPT THE WORK OF ART? A HYPOTHETICAL. Eric Felten had a fascinating article about the philosophy of art in the Wall Street Journal (June 1). In the article he describes the kind of case that law professors love. Sol LeWitt, a well-known artist, made more than a thousand “Wall Drawings”. (This wikipedia article describes Le Witt’s career.) For each Wall Drawing, LeWitt wrote out directions “written out on certificates signed by the artist”. The owner of a wall drawing is suing a gallery which lost the certificate for a drawing.
Felten asks: “What is the work of art? Is it the certificate or the image made by following the instructions on the certificate?” I think the answer is: the certificate. This conclusion is supported by the fact that apparently any physical drawing exists only for a few days. The wikipedia article says: “The wall drawings, executed on-site, generally exist for the duration of an exhibition; they are then destroyed, giving the work in its physical form an ephemeral quality…. They can be installed, removed, and then reinstalled in another location, as many times as required for exhibition purposes.”