Encountering alterity: linguistic opacity in modern and contemporary art

Abstract

This study considers artworks from across the modern and contemporary period (with a focus on the 1940s onwards) where writing is presented as incomprehensible to the viewer. This can occur, for instance, where issues related to cross-cultural interaction are being addressed, or more generally where the issue of encounter with an otherness of some kind has become the content of the work. While the earlier part of the analysis will focus primarily on artists of European or North American origin, artists of non-Western birth will predominate in the discussion of more recent art. Amongst the artists discussed are Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, Mark Tobey, Lee Krasner, Zhao Wuji, Cy Twombly, Rasheed Araeen, Xu Bing, Oscar Ho Hing-Kay, and Warren Leung Chi Wo. Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Chinese written language, and Arabic calligraphy are linguistic codes to which the article will also refer.