Art as Performative Enactment

If a piece of art is left alone in the woods, is it still art? The author of "Art as Performative Enactment" seems to think no, and I have to disagree wholeheartedly. The idea that an artwork manifests itself only at the level its reception is to turn art into something transitory, like the play and the festival Gadamer considers to be the origins of art. Whether a piece of art (intermedia or not) is experienced or shared with other individuals does not in any way contest its existence as art. For instance, caught in a crisis of teen angst and self-loathing, I took to writing poetry and short stories in high school. No one has ever seen these writings, nor will they. I don't pull them out when I'm at home and reread them. The journals they were in may have even been thrown away. My writing was a performative act at the level of its creation, but it was not some festival of communication or sports game I wanted others to engage in. It was the experience of writing I wanted to participate in, not the satisfaction of having created an "expressive symbol."

 While reading "Art as Performative Enactment," I though of Jackson Pollack's famous drip paintings. Critics looking at Pollack's paintings, such as Number 5, which I have attached to this post, remarked on how the layers of paint and patterns of the splatters functioned like a manuscript of all of Pollack's actions used in creating the piece. Looking at the art, viewers could retrace Pollack's movements and imagine the performative act of creating a piece like Number 5. Here, a work of art exists in the performance of its creation- an issue the author of "Art a Performative Enactment" completely ignores.