Christopher Wool
As Barthe has stated throughout Image-Music-Text the inclusion of a linguistic message through text/symbols in a work is typically intended to be polysemous, attaching the floated chain of signifieds. Christopher wool uses text to do just the opposite though. He breaks up the linguistic messages in his pieces causing detachments in the chain of signifieds and does this in order to test the boundaries of abstraction. By actively distorting the once direct meaning of recognizable, postmodern texts, symbols, expressionist painting techniques, etc. he rids their possession of context. Doing this he makes the viewer question not only his intentions of including them but on a greater scale, what the intentions of abstract art can be. There is no hidden message besides that question. Even he himself states that, “I think of myself primarily as an abstract painter, but I find that in making paintings there is a little bit of investigation into what abstract painting can be”. Being immersed i
