Palimpseste, un bon pré-texte

Palimpseste, un bon pré-texte

06.09.08 11.10.08

Xippas Paris Past
“Palimpseste un bon pre-text”, 2008

A palimpsest is a text on parchment that appears by virtue of erasing a previous text. Gérard Genette, reknowned literary theorist, in his fascinating and strict study draws a cartography of successive literature from Homer to the present day. And yet, surprisingly, such a study has never directly been applied to art. Many art historians logically study the influence of artists on one another, allowing for a reassuringly linear (albeit often artificial) perception of art history, but plagiarism has never been stated as an assumed principle ipso facto.
There has been a recent proliferation of attacks, in specialized periodicals, against artists whose works cite sources too blatantly. The palimpsest becomes then a powerful pretext for censuring the work of an artist, even though it is a largely inadequate argument, since artists always speak on someone’s behalf even if unconsciously.

Thus arises the need to distinguish individual creativity, to underline the particularity of thoughts beyond similarities. Even if it folds down the corner of the image of the Universal Creator, the history of art is always more interesting when it claims itself as a nebulous network of influences where the artist is the ideal suspect of insider trading.

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