The main title of this second volume of Writings on Contemporary Art is
borrowed from Claude Lévi-Strauss, whose thinking influenced a
generation. Inspired by Marcel Proust, Lévi-Strauss wrote about the
processes of producing painting, music, literature, calling the
technique described by Proust "double articulation."
This volume focuses primarily on works of art in which the "first-order
units" are themselves artistic works that are cited, recombined, and
reworked. The concepts of "primary objects" and of "double articulation"
deepen our understanding of the disruption of sequences and the
disturbance of cultural traditions.
The works of art discussed in this book inscribe themselves in a context
of transmission that is modified and renewed for experience in the
present.