Book: Jaques Derrida The Truth in Painting 1987

Article: Irina Costache ‘”The Truth in Painting” or Text? The Dialogue Between Studio Art and Theory in Education’

http://www.aesthetics-online.org/articles/index.php?articles_id=9

Costache discusses Derrida’s book from its initial title – a direct quote from Cezanne appropriated by Derrida. The cover image is a reproduction of Adami’s study after Derrida’s Glas. From the front cover onwards Derrida is addressing the layers of meaning derived from textual and visual attributes and appropriations. Costache says that visuality only exists within certain structures that make it accessible and coherent – the structures of text. “Where is truth to be found? In painting or in text?” – How far do we go? Would the absolute truth of Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire be visiting the site itself? Truth and reality are in fact multi-layered constructions, the points of juncture at which we apply meaning are ambiguous and blurred. Costache argues that art is at a point of eclectic paradigm, using the example of Bernini’s 17^th century Trevi Fountain alongside Deuchamp’s 1917 Fountain – both have the same name, each popular for different reasons yet, within the all encompassing realm of art, each competing for attention as art objects.

Costache talks about the discrepancies between visual concordance and artistic worth – a system based on a historical grounding that no longer exists, yet has not had time to catch up. While the art of our era has tentatively stepped out of the frame, the gallery, verification of that art object has not. Legitimacy and codifying systems are still based on discursive norms, not visual perception. Essentially the text and the image are only legitimised in conjunction. While artists are slowly moving their work out of the institution it seems that quality and worth are still defined by re-assimilation back into that frame. Costache discusses the strange irony within the art world that, at a time when ‘image is everything’, within these art-world confines, image is no longer enough. However neither are people content to make their own decisions, instead they readily accept as fact the label, the guided tour, the structural systems in place within the gallery that navigate them passively and subconsciously through the space. “Acceptance of a visual illiteracy”. This hierarchy between making art and writing about art never used to exist, they were seen in conjunction. Why now has this paradigm shift occurred? If art exists as a changing entity within a changing time and value system why should we rely on its verification through text? Much better we make our decisions, in our own time, write our own texts!