David G. Torres ///

Some Observations of a Discursive and Conceptual Nature on Tree Videos by João Onofre.

One of the characteristics of art is its discursive character. In the first place because it has to do with the fact that it creates discourse, or, in other words, it is subjected within the content and is stating something. And, in the second place, because it is set in terms of debate with art itself. This is a recurring argument from the theoretical point of view. From Arthur Danto, when he stated that all artists responded to his contemporaries and the whole of the history of art stood at the same time as a challenge to those who may come, to Catherine Millet, when she stated that nowadays it is impossible to go on painting without taking into account the works of Duchamp, Kosuth or Weiner. Indeed, even Clement Greenberg made clear the whole dogma of formalism on a discursive basis: after all, according to him, abstract expressionism was an essentialist response to the whole history of painting.