The Viewer as an Independent Creator in the Artistic Process
In examining the concepts of art as process and the artifact as a byproduct or residue, I have continually had to confront a central claim in 20th-century art theory: Marcel Duchamp’s assertion that "everything is art if an artist says it is" and that the viewer is necessary to the completion of the work. While Duchamp's declaration radically disrupted traditional hierarchies of artistic production, it contains a contradiction that I am attempting to unravel. Specifically, it presupposes a dependency between the artist's act and the viewer's reception, framing the viewer as necessary to complete or validate the artwork. I am proposing an alternative view: that the artist and the viewer are distinct agents engaged in entirely separate but parallel artistic processes, each producing independent experiences rather than co-creating a unified work.
It is my view that art is the creative act itself; the processes of experiencing, internalizing, empathy, reaction, choice, material influence, creating, et cetera. If art is defined primarily as a process event, then the artifact, the object we have typically understood as the artwork—is merely a byproduct of the artist's process (the art). This view aligns with Robert Morris’s understanding of artistic residues as fragments and runes of a prior bodily engagement with materials:
“Memory reads off fragments seen out of context. I leave fragments that will be read out of context: it was an investigation, there were accidents; desire and fear, loss and memory, repetition and abandonment, theory, speculation, and doubt all accompanied the enterprise…. Over and over again the mark gathers itself as a kind of membrane over absence.” (Morris, Continuous Project Altered Daily, 1970)
In this context, the so-called "artwork" is not the art itself but a trace of the artist’s cathartic and compulsive act of creation. The artifact then does not possess its own inherent artistic authority but rather serves as a catalyst that may or may not spark a separate creative event for those who encounter it. Importantly, this conception of the artifact undermines Duchamp’s assertion that the viewer completes the work. If the “art” resides in the process, it has already concluded before the viewer encounters the artifact. The viewer, therefore, is not witnessing or completing the art but is instead engaging with an object that has the potential to initiate their own distinct creative process.
Duchamp’s framing of the viewer as a necessary participant implicitly undermines the artist’s agency, and the viewer’s autonomy by positioning their role as contingent upon one another. However, if we acknowledge that the artifact is not itself the art but rather a byproduct, then the viewer’s engagement becomes a separate event, untethered from the artist's original intent or experience.
This perspective aligns with phenomenological and interpretive traditions, particularly Hans-Georg Gadamer's view in Truth and Method (1960) that interpretation is a creative act grounded in the interpreter's unique horizon of experience. Gadamer theorizes that the act of understanding is not a passive reception but an active engagement that generates new meanings. Similarly, Nicholas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics (1998) explores how viewers create meaning through their relational encounters with art objects, though Bourriaud tends to emphasize communal experience rather than individual autonomous creation.
By framing the viewer as an independent creator, we can contend that their engagement with the artifact constitutes a separate and distinct artistic event. This event is shaped not only by the artifact but also by the viewer’s personal history, experiences, thoughts, and emotions. The artifact becomes one among many stimuli in the viewer’s artistic process, rather than the central or defining element.
Duchamp's claim that "everything is art" inadvertently supports this view when examined through the lens of process rather than objecthood. If art resides in the process and every individual has the capacity for such processes, then everyone can indeed be an artist—not because they validate someone else's artwork, but because they engage in their own creative processes. This perspective democratizes artmaking and aligns with concepts found in the Dada and Fluxus movements, which sought to dissolve the boundaries between art and everyday life.
However, this renders Duchamp's insistence on the viewer as necessary for completing the artwork indefensible. If the artist's process is complete upon the creation of the artifact, then the artifact does not require a viewer to fulfill its artistic function. The viewer, in encountering the artifact, initiates an entirely new process, independent of the artist's intentions or experiences.
This reconceptualization challenges the traditional relationships between artist, artwork, and viewer. Instead of viewing the artifact as a collaboration between artist and viewer, we have positioned it as a historical trace that, again, may or may not catalyze separate artistic events. The viewer is not a co-creator, but an independent creator engaged in their own unique process. By shifting our understanding in this way, we liberate both the artist and the viewer from hierarchical dependencies and open new possibilities for interpreting and experiencing art as a dynamic phenomenon.
