Using the example of Rachel Whiteread’s work House 1993, I’ll try to figure out in what sense we can consider her work as an indexical one and why is it relevant for discussing this work?
Indexicality refers to something and is perceived in the context of something. This may be the data of our memory, our experience. Time and place, for example, are important circumstances for understanding Whiteread’s artwork.
So, without a previously existing house, a piece of concrete laid out in this way could have a different meaning, could be interpreted differently. This work would be divorced from the context, from the history of this house, family and place.
But how far in our interpretation can we go even if we do not know the author of the work, nor the history of this place with old houses, nor how this house looked and whether it was a house at all? Suppose I do not know the history of the creation of the work and I am not British, that is, I have not seen these types of houses until this moment. Can I, by reasoning, come to the same conclusion as a person who knows the context of this work (the family of this house, how this house looked in the past ...). Perhaps by the Berenson codes (semantic, symbolic, hermeneutic and cultural codes) I can recognize the context and restore the chain of the past to understand this work.
I see a concrete structure in which there are elements similar to windows, doors, stairways, something like fireplaces because it is located at the bottom of each level. That is, in a semantic way, I find the meaning of this structure. This is the house. Next, I peer into the details - the windows, as if squeezed out from the inside. I can assume that someone filled the space of an existing house with concrete. Since also, the alleged staircase-entrance to the house is located on the side of the street. Then they removed the shell of the house, which I can trace by empty reliefs in concrete and only the internal imprint of the house remained. Thus, reasoning and analyzing, I nevertheless came to the context of this work.
Therefore, in the case of this object of art, even if I am not aware of the context, this does not interfere with the interpretation of the work as well as the context-aware person. It may take more time, but it seems to me even more interesting to understand history through working independently, rather than reading the instructions. Here, I came to two conclusions. First, good artwork does not need instructions. The art object itself contains a part of the context or refers to it. Second, simple logic is a good helper for understanding artwork.
Bibliography and references
1. Why did Rachel Whiteread’s House earn her the title Worst Artist? [online] At: https://publicdelivery.org/rachel-whiteread-house/ (Accessed on 21.10.19)
2. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Indexicals [online] At: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/indexicals/ (Accessed on 21.10.19)