MIT Press

The Politics of the Signifier II: A Conversation on the "Informe" and the Abject
Author(s): Hal Foster, Benjamin Buchloh, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Denis Hollier and
Helen Molesworth
Source: October, Vol. 67 (Winter, 1994), pp. 3-21
Published by: MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778965
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 The Politicsof the SignifierII:
A Conversationon the Informe
and theAbject

Hal Foster:Here are a few questions to begin with.The problem of the informe
arisesin the circleof Georges Bataille.Whydoes it arise then,and whydoes
it return?What different roles does it playin itsvariousreturns?How is the
informe related to the abject, and how are both related to the "scatterologi-
cal" impulsein contemporaryart?
BenjaminBuchloh:"Scatterological"points to a discrepancywe should deal with:
are these notions about subject or structure?"Scatter"suggestsstructure,
and points to the informe. "Scatological"involvesthe subject,and points to
the abject.Are you talkingabout scatteringor the scatological?
Foster:I meant the termas a conflationof the two,forthatis how theyappear in
much arttoday.
RosalindKrauss:The blurringof the distinctionbetweensubjectand structurecan
be traced,withinthe recent theorizationof the abject, to Julia Kristeva.In
PowersofHorrorKristevabegins by showingthatthe term"abjection"derives
fromBataille. Clearlyshe would like to see her projectallied withhis, but I
thinkthe two are verydifferent. The notion of the informe, as Bataille enun-
ciatesit,is about attackingtheveryimpositionof categories,since theyimply
thatcertainformsof action are tied to certaintypesof objects.But Kristeva's
project is all about recuperatingcertainobjects as abject-waste products,
filth,body fluids,etc. These objects are given an incantatorypower in her
text.I thinkthatmove to recuperateobjects is contraryto Bataille. I realize
thatmyown concern in thisdiscussionis to address the waysthat the con-
temporaryannexation of Bataille under the banner of abjection is an
illegitimatemove.
Yve-Alain Bois:In Batailleit is a circulationof objectsor substancesthatperform,in
each case, a function in a structural manner.Theyare not reifiedas thispiece
of matter,thatbodilyfluid;theyare objectssetup in a situationalopposition.
Foster:So whatexactlyis under attackin the informe? Is it a questionofformand/or
structure, an epistemologicalproblem,or somehowboth?And ifthe informe
doesn't have the same affectas theabject,whatdoes it do to thesubject?

OCTOBER67, Winter
1994,pp. 3-21. ? 1994 October
Magazine,Ltd.and Massachusetts
Institute
ofTechnology.

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4 OCTOBER

DenisHollier:I wantto go back to a pointRosalindraised,the connectionbetween

Kristevaand Bataille. I remembermybeing surprisedbyher use of his con-
cept of the abject. All the pages Bataille wrote under the heading of
abjectionwere leftunfinished;theywere textualfailures,publishedposthu-
mously (they appear in the second volume of his collected work,all of
which are posthumoustexts).I thinkthisstatusof incompletionis in part
what is at stake in the informe. It is bizarre, then, that concepts like the
informe and the abject come back todayin discoursesthatare empowered
witha strangeauthority, succeedingin writingBataille'slastword.
Krauss:Going back to the question about "scatterological"-aboutwhetherthe
problemis one of subjector structure-I take the informe to be structural.
I
take it to be a wayforBataille to group a varietyof strategiesforknocking
formoffitspedestal.The wordcoins the notionof a job, a process;it is not
merelya wayto characterizebodilysubstancesso thatthe formerly disprivi-
leged becomes the privileged-as is the case now with art that invokes
"abjection."That seems a childishmove,one Bataillewouldn'tsupport.But
the permissionto make such a move is there,deep in the heartof Kristeva's
project,because herwholeeffort seemsto be about returning to thereferent.
Buchloh:But mightthere be another approach between the two you suggest-
betweena simplereturnto the referent(I agree thatis a possiblereadingof
her approach) and a reductively structuralinterpretation of the conceptsof
the informe and the abject?
Krauss:You mean myinterpretation.
Buchloh:Well,you seem to oppose openingup the conceptsof the informe and the
abjectto morematerialist interpretations, ones thatare not necessarilysimply
referential.Nor are theynecessarilyinfantilecelebrationsofbodilyfluidsand
excrement.I knowthatreadingis almostinflictedon us today,butit'snot the
onlyalternative.
Krauss:Let me specifywhatI thinkthe problemsare in Kristeva, and thenyou tell
us what this thirdwaymightbe. As a preconditionfor language, Kristeva
positssomethingshe calls a "thetic"phase in the developmentof the child.
As the term"thetic"mightsuggest,she conceivesthisphase in phenomeno-
logical terms,in thatit impliesthereis no wayto set up a signifying system
withoutthe subject'spositingan object. And even what is pre-theticin the
infant-the preverbal,presymbolic stageofwhatshe calls "semiosis"-isitself
construedbyher as the preconditionof the thetic.So in her theorizationof
language no area of the constitutionof the sign remainsthatis not geared
towarda processof naming.
One of her examples of the theticis the child using "woof-woof" as
the name of all animals. Compare this example of how a sign comes to be
constitutedwith,say, Roman Jakobson's account. For him "pa" becomes
available as a signifiernot in relationto an externalobject but as a function
of the construction of the human mouth. What he argues is that the

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The PoliticsoftheSignifier
11 5

stopped-down,voiceless formationof /p/ and the open-mouthed,voiced

formationof /a/ representthe maximumbinaryopposition of which the
mouth is capable. This primalsound is thus not mimetic("woof-woof"says
the dog) but combinatory.And once this /pa/ is re-markedthroughthe
repetitionof a second /pa/-producing "papa"-sound is constitutedas a
signifier.This notion of the sign emerging structurallyaround a set of
oppositions is verydifferentfromKristeva's"thetic"account. In her work,
whichpayslip serviceto structuralism, there is alwaysa slippage thatbrings
us awayfromsignificationarisingaround oppositionsto significationbeing
about naming.And thatis what I see underpinningthe presentuse of the
notion of abjection-the slide to naming certain substances. Given that,
whatis yourthirdway?
Buchloh:I can give one example: JudithButler's modificationof the notion of
abjection,clearlyderivedfromKristeva,to theorizeheterosexuality as a prin-
ciple thatneeds to positionhomosexualityin the abject in orderto constitute
itself.That is, on the one hand, a structuralmodel because it describes a
processof differentiation and identification.Yet,on the otherhand, it never
pretendsthatall thosedifferentials takeplace withinlanguageor the semiotic
systemalone. They also take place in the enactingof homophobia, in the
materialrealityof day-to-day social behavior.There the concept of abjection
gains a complex actualitythat a merelystructuralinsistenceon the notion
cannot attain.And I thinkit is a productiveexpansionof the model to recog-
nize that psychosexualand social behavior,even if it is structuredaround
such principles,is enacted in materialways.
Foster:Why should we evaluate either notion strictlyfrom the perspectiveof a
structuralism, which Bataille is somehow seen to prepare and fromwhich
Kristevais seen to fallaway,or a materialismwhich...
Buchloh:Why not?
Foster:Because these notionsmaybe intendedto exceed those perspectives,or at
least to elaborate themcritically.
Krauss:I thinkwe shouldevaluatethemin thoseways.Abjectionis now a theoretical
project.In PowersofHorror Kristevasaysthatrighttherewiththe incesttaboo,
fullyas universaland as foundationalto all symbolicsystems, is the problem
of pollution.And presumably JudithButlerwould supportthisnotion,ifshe
feelsthatheterosexuality cannotbe constitutedwithoutitsother,homosexu-
ality. So I think it is important to investigatehow these categories are
generated.
Foster:
Fine,but we should do so in termsappropriateto them.
HelenMolesworth: I agree thatKristevauses the abject to reifycertainbodilyprod-
ucts.Partof Butler'sargumentengages in a similarkind of reification--that
the oppositionbetweenselfand otheris so clear thatit can be distinguished
in a veryearlymoment,around issuesof heterosexuality and homosexuality.
As if heterosexuality were a subject in and of itselfthatcould constitutean

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6 OCTOBER

other called homosexualitythat is also embodied in a subject. Here the

notion of abjectionbecomes hooked up withidentitypolitics.I would lean
more towardBataille,on a notionlike the informe thatallowsforslippage-
where at certainmomentsyou can't tell the differencebetweenan eye and
an asshole.
Buchloh:But tryingto clarifythe ideology of homophobia, as Butler does, is a
differentproject frompursuingepistemologicaloppositionsfor theirown
sake. One has to recognizethereis a stakein her argument,and thisis the
attemptto clarify ideologyformation on thelevelof theunconscious.It is not
about creatingnew oppositionscalled heterosexuality and homosexuality;it
is about describingan unconsciousformationcalled homophobia,itsorigins
and functions.And the use of the process of abjectionwithregardto that
formation, as well as to thatof racism,seemsto me productive.
Foster:I thinkthat'sright.But I wonderabout the primordialnatureof abjection
as proposed by Kristeva.The problemmightbe not thatthisnotion is not
structuralenough, but thatit is toostructural, thatis to say,too oppositional.
It seems to pose an inside-outside model wherebythefoundationalact of the
subjectis, paradoxically,to get rid of thatwhichit is not. This suggeststhat
the originarystateof the subjectis disgust, whichis therebymade natural,or
again primordial.It is as if thereis no wayforany subjectnotto be phobic
before figuresof alterity-ethnic,sexual, whateverdisgustmay target.So
even as the notion of abjection opens up productivewaysto thinkabout
racismand homophobia,it threatensto rendertheminnateand endemic.
Buchloh:Their historicalpervasiveness mightalmostjustifythat.
That is the big question:when does a formationrun so deep as to become
Foster:
"natural"?My question is smaller: is there a tendency in the notion of
abjection to "primordialize" fearand loathing,to "paranoicize"the subject?
Despite its own problems, the informe does not carry an inside-outside
model withit; it suggestsa differentrelationto the body,to the body-ego
image. But then again it is not nearlyas usefulin analysesof the subjective
dimensionof ideology.
Buchloh:What I just said about the pervasivenessof racismand homophobiawas
notjust flip.WhatMarxisttheoryhas failedto addressis irrationality in ide-
ology formations,which has become one of the most urgent tasks for
materialistthinkingtoday.It is in thissense thatthe historicalpervasiveness
of racismand homophobia mightjustifytreatingthemas thoughtheywere
naturalphenomena.
Molesworth:The problemI havewiththeelaborationofabjectionbyButlerand others
is thatI am not surethathomophobiaand racismareinside-outside problems.
I don't see themstructured so clearly.Mappingan inside-outside model onto
them mightsolidifyboundariesthatare in factmore fluid-between races,
betweensexualities.Butleroftenpresentscomplicatedmodels of sexuality,
but thestrict oppositionofhomo and heterois notproductive forme.

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The PoliticsoftheSignifierII 7

Hollier:The conceptof abjectionshould be linkedto theorderof the performative,

and here I agree with aspects of what Benjamin said. It is not simply
epistemological; there is essentiallya pragmaticsof abjection. As far as I
remember,thisis theweakpointof Kristeva'sthematizingapproach.When it
is linked to specificobjects or substances,when it becomes a classificatory
problem,the subjectiveelement,the positionof the subjectin a pragmatic
reaction,disappears.
Krauss:Which is ironic,because as I read the developmentof herwork,her depar-
ture from what she must have viewed as old-fashioned structuralism
involved,at one and the same time,the positingof a performative dimen-
sion as crucial to linguisticanalysis and understandingthat dimension's
subject-of-enunciation in a phenomenologicalway,whichcarriesher analysis
right back into categorizingand naming.
Foster:Apartfromits statusas a theoreticalsin in thiscircle,what is the problem
withnaming?One problemis that,in a politicalcontext,it allowsfora refer-
encing of the abject thatrightand lefttend to agree upon today.I mean,
both sides tend to name the same names,the same groups.
Molesworth:They serve to shore one anotherup. Take, forinstance,the response
of the rightwing to the "Abject Art" show last summer at the Whitney
Museum. In the show,as in Kristeva,therewas littleattemptto workout the
representationalact involvedin somethingcalled "abject art."It is as if the
exhibition,the religiousright,and Kristevacould all agree thatJohnMiller's
sculpturereallyis a pile of shit.
Buchloh:But his sculptureis not a crystalball either.It makessystematic
reference,
in texture,structure, morphology,and color, to a substancethatis not likely
anythingelse. Helen, you don't have the same troublewithRauschenberg's
use of red and brownin associationwithblood and excrement.You make
the referentialmodel quite valid in your article ["Before Bed,"October 63],
even though you discredit it rightnow. And, Rosalind, in your Pollock
chapter [in The Optical Unconscious(1993)], which is the most complex
poststructuralist reading of his work I know,you too go far into territory
thatcan be called referential.
Krauss: How?
Buchloh:Firstof all, thereis the discussionof the ritualof urination.
Krauss:I neverdiscussit in relationto Pollock himself.
Buchloh:But it is broughtinto the discussion.
Krauss:It is broughtinto the discussionat two levels,the firsthavingto do with
the receptionofPollock's drip paintings,both at the timehe exhibitedthem
and laterin the case of Warhol's interpretive readingof the drips.The second
level-invoking the Freudian businessabout peeing on the fire-has to do
witha structureof mimeticrivalry withinwhichI wishto place Pollock. This
is a matterof structure;it is neverabout Pollock actuallypeeing anywhere-

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 8 OCTOBER

:ii

Pollock.Number1, 1950.
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1950.

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ThePoliticsoftheSignifier
HI 9

includingin the toilet.That's whereI wantto distancemyself fromarguments

thatliteralizesuch things.
Buchloh:But you make referenceto the well-knownfactthatPollock peed in the
fireplace.
Krauss:In factI make no referencewhateverto Pollock peeing in the fireplace.
And if Warhol invoked peeing in connection to Pollock, I don't thinkit
connected to an act on the part of the biographicalPollock but ratherto
the nature of the dripped mark.I doubt thatWarhol knewanythingabout
the biographicalinstances.If he interpretedthe drip gestureas peeing, as
he obviouslydid, itwas to put an ironicspin on morphology,to demote the
markfromformto informe.
Buchloh:But Warhol is literalizingit.
Krauss:No.
Buchloh:Well,he's actuallyurinatingon the canvas;that'sone wayof literalizingit.
We should look at the art,as Hal suggestedat the beginning,because it is
onlytherethatwe can tell how referentialor structural we mustbe in order
to describewhatis actuallydone. I agree withyou thatJohnMiller'ssculpture
is not a pile of shit...
Krauss:But it's not a Mondrianeither.
Buchloh:It's not even a RichardSerra.To bringin the urethralor the anal in rela-
tion to Serra's 1968 splash piece is verydifficult,
and you would be a fool to
do so. But to say thatMillerpushes in the directionof the scatologicalbut
only in structuraltermswould be the opposite folly.Isn't theresome space
betweenthose tworeadings?That is whyI broughtin yourPollock chapter.
YourdiscussionofRene Girardis a moveawayfromstructural termsaltogether.
Krauss:No, his analysisis totally in thathe talksabout desire in terms
structuralist,
not of its object but as the functionof a relationshipto a mediator.In his
account the structureitselfbecomes a force field,and one, furthermore,
thathe explicitly warnsagainstcoding too quickly--forexample,byclaiming
homosexualityas its cause. He wants to say that homosexualityis rather
more its effect.
Buchloh:But the mediatorin the particularstructureyou set up has a name and a
history:Picasso.
Krauss:Yes.
Buchloh:So at whatmomentdoes the structurebecome porous to history? Atwhat
momentdoes the Oedipal enterit,therebymakingit not onlystructural?
Krauss: It becomes porous to historyand even biography,but it doesn't start
there. It suspends for as long as possible the graspingafterhistoricaland
biographicalreferents. The structureitselfmakescertainthingspossible.
Bois: The model of the informe in your piece on Pollock is porous to history.
Unlike the themeof the abject,the informe performsa job, a task.The read-
ing Warhol makes of Pollock, or Twomblyor Morrismakes of Pollock, is a
debasingone, contraryto the classicallyformalistreadingof Pollock thathas

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10 OCTOBER

long been standard.The task is structuredby the historicalsituation.For

Warhol,Twombly,and Morrisit was necessaryto read Pollock in waysthat
directlycontradictedthe sublimatory readingthatengenderedsomeone like
MorrisLouis. This processhas nothingto do withnaturalization; it has to do
withstructural dynamization.
Krauss:To go back to the example ofJohnMiller:Benjamin,you sayhis sculpture
is not a crystalball; but I thinkhe is interestedin a structurethatimplicitly
compares the materialityof a ball to its geometry,and thus to its formal
"transparency." Now ifyoujust sayit's shit,all thevectorsthata structure lets
him set up in the work-between the huge ball, forexample,and the tiny
house on top of it-get lost.
Molesworth:This vectoringis lackingin a lot of worknow championedaround the
notionof abjection.There is thesense thattheabjectcan onlybe represented
throughitsmostdirectreferents. That is verydifferent fromthe 1950swhen
artistslike Pollock and Rauschenbergdid not signal so directly.There are
complicatedscreensin theirwork,screensoffantasy.
Today theworkthatbestemploysthesescreensor vectorsis installation
work,where entire fantasyspaces are created. For instance, in Matthew
Barney'sworkthe anxious abject body is pushed throughthe eroticsieveof
football,and inJessicaStockholder'stheatrical, paint-ladendetritusconstruc-
tions, inside-outsidequestions are projected onto throwawaycommodity
culture.
Buchloh:Yve-Alainreferredto the historicalspecificity of the dialogicalrelationof
Twomblyand otherswithPollock-that cutsacrossdirectreferentiality. And
now Helen mentionedthe screenof fantasyas anothersystemof mediation.
So you both suggestthatthe breakdownoccurswhenpeople insiston imme-
diacy,on motivatedrelationships.Does thismean thatTwomblywas never
involvedin how repressedhomosexualitycould be articulatedin his work?
You suggesthe was only interestedin how Pollock could be rescued from
ClementGreenberg.I have mydoubts.
Bois: We never said "only."When you look at Twombly'searly development,
before the graffitipieces, you see a step-by-stepimitation of different
AbstractExpressionists.He triesto emulate them but cannot; he realizes
thatforhim it's a fraud.So he graduallymovesto a positionof parodyand
dismissal.He thenthinks:How can I debase, smear,erase thatthing?
Buchloh:As did Rauschenberg; it's an almost ritualisticprocess. But isn't that
operation alwaysperformedwiththe intentionof redeemingthe radicality
of the figureone wants to erase-the radicalityit has already lost in the
processof itsacculturation? Pollockis the keyfigure.He has to be dethroned
and debased,but his radicality also has to be reenacted.
Bois:Yet when Twomblystarted,he wasn'ttryingto imitatePollock. It was Kline,
de Kooning, Motherwell.He graduallymoved to Pollock as he became
involvedin graffiti.

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12 OCTOBER

Foster:I hate to sayit,but the threeof you have collaboratedon a storythatfeels

almostas claustrophobic,as hermetic,as the old narrative.Onlynow,rather
thana heroichistoryofform-givers, we have a heroichistoryofform-undoers,
great debasers of form. But how changed are the names,the Oedipal struc-
ture,the mimeticrivalry,thevaluesystem? Yve-Alainuses the word "debase,"
but in this structuralist reading of Bataille, Pollock, Twombly,and all the
rest,the materiality, the bodiliness,the historicity of the informe,
the base of
the base,all but drops out. "Debasing"here is no more materialistthan a
move in a board game: Twomblyjumps Pollock but crownshim as he goes.
And you threesurveythesemovesas necessaryafterthefactand fromabove.
Krauss:You're sayingthatwe're cleaningitup, makingit a clean machine.
Foster:
Yes. Resublimating, but in the guise of desublimating.
Krauss:Well, thatgets back to the question Benjamin raised about a thirdterm.
I'm havingtroubleseeingwhatthisthirdtermis. Betweenthe conceptionof
a structurewithinwhich to account for choices and thisreferenceto the
body and its objects,I much preferthe first,the structuralist position.You
say there is thirdposition.
Buchloh:The workitselfnecessitatesa typeof discussionthatdoes not automati-
callydrop out the physiological, biographical,and performative dimensions.
You inscribeall thosedimensionsinto a structureof dialogicalrelationships,
and thatdoesn't allowyou to addresscertainsubjects-like the problemfor
artistsof articulatingsexualityin art in, say, 1955. You say it's all about
Greenberg; I don't thinkTwombly-or Johns or Rauschenberg-cared
much about Greenbergthen.A different motivationgeneratedthatwork;it
was not about criticizingthe receptionof Pollock. I don't thinkartistsare
thatinterestedin criticizing such receptions,let alone in criticizingcritics.
Krauss:I findthatextremelystrangecomingfromyou.As a criticyou have staked
a greatdeal over the yearson the wayartistspositionthemselveswithinthe
unfolding historyof certain artisticparadigms. In this respect you are
alwaysstressingthe question of artisticbelatedness,the need to battlewith
super-ego-like positionsthatseem to block theway.And now you suggestall
thatno longermatters?
I thinkTwombly,Rauschenberg,and Johnswere obsessed withwhere
theywere entering the artisticdiscourse, with the problem of who was
blockingtheiraestheticspace, or whethertheycould join thatdiscourseor
had to discreditit or to redeem it.To ignorethatis to underratetheartist.
But does the storyof mimeticrivalry
Foster: tellall?
Krauss:No, nothingtellsall.
Foster:And yetfor you literalizationtells nothing.I am reallyinterestedin this
horrorof literalization.
Krauss:Yes, I have that horror.The "body"-as it has increasinglysurfacedin
currenttheoreticalwork-is rapidlybecomingmyphobic object.
Foster:In its literalness?But is the body the literal?One reason the body is an

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The PoliticsoftheSignifierII 13

obsessional site of criticaldiscourse and artisticpractice is its ambiguous

status-both constructedand natural, semiotic and referential.And this
ambiguityis alwaystreatedin different ways.I thinkwe need to be able to
thinkthose differences, and I am not sure thateithera structuralist account
of the informeor a naturalistreadingof the abject is much help there.
In PowersofHorror Kristevarefersto theworkofMaryDouglas,in particu-
lar Purityand Danger.A foundationalconcept forDouglas is the statusof the
body as an image of the social body. It is the different valences of thissym-
bolismthatwe need to register.Take the informe. It is a termused in relation
to modernistartbeforeBataille; it is there,forexample,in the receptionof
Manet's Olympia.It doesn't signifyor functionin the same way in these
differentcontexts.Now even if historicizationis not a wayout, we need to
distinguishsuch differentmeanings.We shouldn't lock them all into one
structuralistmodel or one dialogicalnarrative.
Bois: Historicizationis not a way out, but it does have the advantage of putting
naturein abeyance.
Foster:How is the interestin the informe in the 1950s and '60s different fromthat
in the 1920s and '30s? You mentionedSerra...
Krauss:I want to ask Benjamin a somewhatperversequestion about Serra. You
said that his splash pieces can't be related to abjection or anality. What
about his Hand CatchingLead (1968)? There you have an action which is
analogous to the operationsof the sphincteron the one hand and the glottis
on the other.That is the domain of the semioticforKristevawhere,before
language ever appears, the body is digitalized-in a kind of off-on,off-on-
in relation to the drivesand to pleasure. Isn't that a way of talkingabout
Hand CatchingLead?
Buchloh:We are reversingroles here; you are posing a question I should have
asked. I was puzzled when you said it, and then I thoughtof another film
thatprobablymakesyourpoint even better,whichis Serra's Hands Scraping
(1968). There the two hands are tryingto scrape the lead offthe floorand
this activityof scrounginggeneratesassociationsof the kind you just men-
tioned.
Krauss:I thinkthat'san interesting wayinto thatfilm.
Buchloh:Yes, but thenyou open it up to a discussionof the bodilydimensionas a
referential dimension.
Krauss:But the reason I've set up thisexample is thatin Serra'sfilmit's notgivena
referentialdimension;the filmoperates to hold offthe referent,as well as
the kindof thematicsitwould imply.Surelyyouwouldn'tjust saythatSerra's
hand is his sphincter?
Buchloh:No, but we aresayingthatthe referenceit establishesto bodilyexperience
is differentfroman emphasison structurein and of itself.Now we are saying
there'sanotherdimension,one thatgivesthe filmitshauntingquality...
Krauss:That helps to explain itsaffect...

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ThePoliticsoftheSignifier
II 15

Buchloh:Whichis grounded in the body,in earlybodilyexperience.That givesthe

worka dimensionI would call referential.
Krauss:But Serra's filmis notliteralizingthe body by a long way,and that is its
brilliance,for in thatdistance a sortof layeringoccurs. You begin to think
about relationshipsof one piece of matterto another,one act to another,
one type of articulationto another,one kind of time to another. That is
whatI am arguingfor:the layeringthatoccurswithinthatdistance.I am not
arguingto keep thebodyout. Keep it in, but in a kindofprocess.
Buchloh:Yet there is a repressiveimpulse here-for example, when Yve-Alain
imploresus to keep natureat bay,or when you say,even facetiously, thatthe
is a
body phobicobject. There is a certain to
push keep itout as as
long possible.
Krauss:There is a reason forthat.The richnessof Serra'sfilm...
Buchloh:Is itssublimatory achievement.
Bois:No, it has nothingto do withsublimation.Natureis alwayspromptas an anti-
historical,foundational base, and once you are trapped there you can't
move.That is myproblemwithKristeva.
Krauss:In settingup her categoryof the "subjectin process,"Kristevawantsto tap
into the poetic possibilityof thosedeeplyambiguoussignifiers thatallow the
bodily to slip throughthe linguisticstream-glossolalia, for example. And
Serra's filmmaybe involvedin a similarkind of process.I mean it puts the
bodyintoa signifying system, but notin a literalist
way.
Bois:One of Kristeva'sheroes is Ivan Fonagy,a linguistinfluencedbypsychoanaly-
sis who wrotea book-lengthessaycalled Les basespulsionelles de la phonation.
He argued that the sequences of phonemes selected by the infantchild
relate to secret sexual impulses. They comprise a sort of dictionarythat
might eventuallybe decoded. We are back in a kind of fundamentalist
theory,with the same kind of universal claims that Freud criticized so
harshlyin Jung:thissymbolequals thatmeaning.Kristevadoes not do that,
but it's significant
thatFonagyis an importantfigureforher. Because of her
reliance on Fonagy,she does not keep natureat bay (to use once more the
expression that struckBenjamin), and once you build a transcendental
worldof referencesand themes,you are stuck.
Krauss:That getsback to whatHelen said about the space of fantasy, whichreally
depends on slippage.You can't have a dictionaryof pleasure.
Molesworth: At the riskof contradictingmyself,and in tryingto put Hal's points
back on the table,I thinkholding natureat bay is now quite different from
what it was in the 1960s and '70s. In a sense, holding nature at bay now
means holding HIV and AIDS at bay. The notion of whatis abject now and
where the boundaries lie are very differentfromwhat they once were.
Things haveemergedin a literalwaynow. Critiquesof "constructedidentity"
become problematicwhen you're on the streetdoing AIDS activism.It's
hard to feel "constructed"at thatmoment;you're enactinga body you feel
you must claim as your own. There is a real stake, and those stakes are

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16 OCTOBER

different at different moments.We have to figureout a wayto account for

thosedifferences.
Bois: I don't think holding nature at bay means holding HIV at bay. On the
contrary,holding HIV at bay would be holding history at bay. I'm simply
reaffirming here the old Marxist(and structuralist) opposition:naturever-
sus history.Clearlywe are in a historicalsituationwhereHIV and AIDS are a
veryimportantpartof anysocial manifestation.
Krauss:WillAIDS determinehowwe theorizeissuesof representation?
Buchloh:I thinkit has, in thissense. One can evoke the workof Serra,but after
twenty-five yearsone recognizesthe degree of universality it propounded,its
lack of specificity.Whathe did in 1968 to reintroducethebodycannotserve
as a model for how the body mightbe reinscribedin artisticproduction
under presentsocial circumstances.
Krauss:And does Andres Serrano reinscribethe body throughAIDS? Because I
thinkwhathe is doing is veryinteresting.
Molesworth: It seems thatAIDS is one fantasyscreenthatexistsnow. I don't think
blood can be seen withoutthevalenceofHIV. The factthatblood,sperm,and
analityare the most charged termsof abjection now has to be understood
in relationto HIV.
Krauss:I have a lot of problemswiththiskind of decision thatrepresentationis
alwaysattachedto specific,politicizedreferential fields.
Foster:When is representationnot a politicizedfield?The question is not if it is,
but how to understandit and to act in it. And here there is not much to
choose, methodologicallyor tactically,between an iconographyof certain
themesand a structure of pure oppositions.Neitheris satisfactory.
Krauss:Whatwould satisfy you?
Foster:There is alwaysa networkof signifiers of the body.That networkchanges,
and thathas to be historicized. To dismissitall as "referential" is a bigmistake.
Krauss:In the recentcases we're talkingabout, they are not invoked as signifiers
of thebody;I thinktheyare used as signifieds. That's the problem.
Hollier:Whycan't theybe movedintothepositionof thesignifier?
Krauss:That involvessome work.Serra,withthathand, is producinga signifier of
the body.
Hollier:A signifiedcan alwaysbe a signifier. Whatyou sayabout Serracan also be
said of a workthatthat looks literal. The literalnessis not in the object,in
thesign,but in itsreception.There is nothingthattiesyouto a literalreading.
Buchloh: Can I illustrate this with an example? The photograph of Robert
Mapplethorpesticking bullwhipup his anus is not necessarilymore refer-
a
ential than Cy Twomblymakinglittledrawingsof anuses in 1956. That it
becomes literaldoes not mean thatitbecomes referential.
Krauss:I don't agree.It's notso obviousthatTwomblyis makingdrawingsofanuses.
There is a constantslidingin the fieldof his art. His graffiti in particular
are not onlyperverselypolymorphous;they are also polysemic.The positive

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 '
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18 OCTOBER

identification ofwhathe is drawingis held offin a structure of endlesspossi-

bilities.I don't thinkMapplethorpe'simage has the same polysemicenergy.
Buchloh:But the step fromPollock to Twomblyrequireda degree of literalization
thatyou probablyreceivedat the timeas a similarkindof impoverishment.
Krauss:In the mid-1960sI was under the intellectualthumbof Greenberg,and I
hated Twombly'swork.
Buchloh:Can you recallwhy?
Krauss:Because it wasn't properlysublimatory, because it had a materialquality
thatkeptit thereon the chalkboard,in the schoolroom,withall thoseawful
ArtBrutconnotations.
Buchloh:So the sexual explicitnesswas not partofwhatrepelledyou?
Krauss:I didn'tsee it.
Hollier:I have the feelingthatwhatwasjust said somehowproduced the abject on
the table.I mean the reactionhere to Mapplethorpeand the repulsionfrom
Twombly.
Molesworth: I agree. Benjamin used the word "impoverishment," and I have the
sense of an impoverishedmomentin the present.This could be an effectof
projectinga deep richnessonto the past thatnever existed,but thereis a
sense in whichabjectionis alwayspartofyourresponseto yourown time.
I feel thispolymorphousrichnessof meaningthatwe have set up acts
as a new kind of modernismagainstwhich contemporaryworkcan never
matchup. The abjectbecomes the insufficiency ofyourown present.
Hollier:Bataille's abject is not about the polymorphous;it arisesas a refusal of the
polymorphousor at least the polysemic.It is utopian,but he wantedto get
ridof metaphor,of transposition.
Krauss:But is polysemythe same as metaphoricity?
Hollier:Whatwe have been attackingas literalis whathe had in mindwhenhe was
talkingabout abjection.That is Bataille's Rousseauism-to thinkthatthere
can be a languagewithoutmetaphorand transposition.
Krauss:That's at odds withKristeva'sinvocationof semiosisas a bodilyfieldwithin
which the play of metaphoris at work.Since everyorificebecomes digital-
ized into open versus shut, on versus off,taken together theyset up a
transpositionalfieldthroughwhicheach can be seen as a metaphorof the
other. This field then becomes the terrain throughwhich the primary
processes of condensation and displacement can work.As a theoretical
object thatpulsionalfieldwould,then,be alien to Bataille.
Hollier:Yes, as I said, it is strangeto see the discourseof Kristevaput in the same
batchwiththatof Bataille.
Buchloh:But would Bataille have contestedreferentiality to the same degree that
he battledmetaphoricity? FromwhatI knowthereis not an antireferential
dimensionin hiswork.
Bois: No, but the referentin Bataille has a transgressive function.The problem

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 The PoliticsoftheSignifier
11 19

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20 OCTOBER

withabjectionis thatthe referentis givenas an origin.In Batailleit is more

like a crachat dansla soupe.It alwayshas a situationalquality.
Buchloh:Your example of spittingin the soup is exact: the informe is both bodily
and social. It's breaking rules, rupturingconventions,and situatingthat
rupture.There's the body and there's the soup-the two have to be con-
nected in order to make the informe. Spittingin the soup is not simplyan
epistemologicalproject.
Bois:No, you have to spitaccurately,in therightsoup.
Hollier:All these concepts in Bataille are tied to a problem thatis subjectiveas
well: it is the subjectthatis abject. That is wherehis attackon metaphoricity
comes in. If you die, you die; you can't have a substitute. Whatcan't be sub-
stitutedis what binds subject and abject together. It can't simplybe a
substance.It has to be a substancethat addresses a subject,that puts the
subjectat risk,in a positionfromwhichit cannot moveaway.
Krauss:Take the articlewhereBatailleaddresses"thelanguageof flowers." Society
considers flowersbeautiful,but somethinghappens to those flowersthat
producesthemas abject,outsidethe systemofbeauty...
Hollier:That is the storyof desire meetingits object and suddenlyrealizingit is
repulsive.But considerthe reverse:when I saw the "AbjectArt"showat the
Whitney,I thought,What is abject about it? Everything was veryneat; the
objects were clearly art works. They were on the side of the victor.This is
very different from the young Bataille's dark utopianism and his obsession
withthe abjection of the defeated,withthe fact that the abject, resisting
metaphoricizationand displacement,can neverbe put on display.The real
focusof the essayon the language of flowersis the referenceto "theimpossi-
ble visionof the roots."The abjectcannotbe shown;it cannotbe toldeither,
because of the ineradicablemetaphoricity of language.
Buchloh:But the struggleagainst metaphoricityis not enough to differentiate
Bataillefromhis modernistcontemporaries.That struggleis a keyoperation
withinmodernistpracticessince 1915 at least.
Hollier:There are two sides of this struggle.One is the abject, which we have
discussed. The other is the subject, its experience, its desiringposition,
as absolutelysingular.And that is whythe informe must alwaysbe linked
to some kind of pragmatics,to a performative gesturethattiessubjectand
abject together.
Foster:It seems to me we have come fullcircle,thatis, into complete contradiction.
First,Rosalind argued thatthe Kristevanabject cannot be derived fromthe
Batailleaninforme. And now Denis gives us an informein which the abjectis in
playbecause the subject is at stake-an informe that is not simplya question
of formor structureor referentiality. So whichis it?
Hollier:I go back to myfirstremarkregardingtheirdifference:Can therebe a
discourseof the victorabout the abject?Bataille's discourseof the abject is
a defeatistdiscourse.

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ThePoliticsoftheSignifier
11 21

Buchloh:The victorbeing the museum?

Hollier:Or a strongacademic voice like Kristeva's.Hal, in your book Compulsive
Beautyyou talk about the difficulty of the death drive for the surrealists.
Today I think there is a strangeinstitutionalizationof the beyond of the
pleasure principle. And I thinkthe with
fascination the abject is involved.
Molesworth: But the question we haven't answeredis why.Whydo artistswant to
make objects thatare abject?What kind of desire is in play there?In what
waysare theyfrustrated about particularaspectsofvisuality,
about the spaces
of the museumand the gallery?
Bois:Whatyou sayremindsme of the enormousconcern in the 1960s about recu-
peration. I have the feeling that is a major issue again. It has to do with
findingthe thresholdof museability-to inventthingsthatcannot be taken
in. I sometimesthinkthisrush to the referentcomes fromthatsense: since
the object will be eaten up by the museum anyway,it should be made as
shockingas possible. And yet thatshock can't quite dispel the feelingthat
the museumis nontransgressible.
Foster:But is it reallyabout recuperation?It seems more paradoxical to me. For
there is a certainauthorityin the idea of the abject, as Denis suggested,a
certainpower in its position.That is a point MaryDouglas makes too: the
site of pollutionis also a generativeone, and it is fearedas such. Surelythat
power,thatanxiety,exceeds the space of the museum.
Molesworth: I agree. I don't thinkrecuperationis such a problemforcontemporary
artistsand critics.We krrowthat all culturalproductionis equally and ulti-
matelyavailableforsuch a fate.It seems to me the bestthatcan be hoped for
is thatsuch work,abject or informe, mightpointto some transgressive place or
practice-in a waythatmight,howevermomentarily, disturbthe statusquo.

September12, 1993

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