more from Inside the White Cube, by Brian O’Doherty

on the Spectator/ Viewer/ Observer/ Perceiver

“He not only stands and sits on command; he lies down and even crawls as modernism presses on him its final indignities. Plunged into darkness, deprives of perceptual cues, blasted by strobes, he frequently watches his own image chopped up and recycled by a variety of media. Art conjugates him, but he is a sluggish verb, eager to carry the weight of meaning, but not always up to it. He balances; he tests; he is mystified, demystified. In time, the Spectator stumbles around between confusing roles: he is a cluster of motor reflexes, a dark-adapted wanderer, the vivant in a tableau, an actor manquee, even a trigger of sound and light in a space land-mined for art. He may even be told that he himself is an artist and be persuaded that his contribution to what he observes or trips over is its authenticating signature.” p. 41