MEDIA CULTURE: MCS 271: Abstract Expressionism: A Rejection of Semiotics Within Art

In reading "Semiotics and Television" this week, I couldn't help but draw parallels to the integral nature of Semiotics, or signs and signifiers, within the art world. Nearly all art is meant to be viewed and understood in this way, from the paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux (to which most of our knowledge of these works is deduced only from semiotics), to the Campbell's Soup cans by Andy Warhol that take this concept and poke fun at it.
Perhaps even more interesting are some of the post-modern abstract expressionists who utterly refute semiotics in their work such as Mark Rothko (briefly mentioned in class) with his simple blocks of pure color and Jackson Pollock who rejected conventional form entirely, purely to express the intrinsic qualities of the paint and various other mediums used. Both of these artists continue to leave viewers wondering what they are about because they challenge the very concept of semiotics that we are so conditioned to. People like to view Rothko and Pollock in the same way that they would a Renoir, as having signs and signifiers that represent some kind of signified object...so it's quite understandable that when these factors don't exist within a piece, people tend to dislike or completely dismiss it. These works are outliers, aimed purely to represent the intrinsic qualities of color (Rothko) and the intrinsic qualities of paint, (Pollock) no more and no less. They are to be viewed only as what they are, not what they are seemingly represented to be...which is pretty interesting considering this counter-concept had not been achieved before.