In my paper, I intend to explore a special form of artistic quotation, the “intericonic blank”, — a type of intericonicity which is essential for the meaning of an artwork but in which the referent literally cannot be seen. In analogy to a restricted concept of literary intertextuality, “intericonicity” serves here to describe references on the level of visual perception, i.e., references in which works of art are involved even though they do not necessarily need to point to other artworks. Making use of the descriptive tools provided by a number of, mainly German, theoreticians of intertextuality, I will focus on a detailed analysis of three works and their references to feature films: 

 

In his photographic series “Theaters” (1975-2001), Hiroshi Sugimoto creates an intericonic blank using a strategy of visual overdetermination. Louise Lawler, on the other hand, pursues a strategy of underdetermination in “A Movie Will be Shown Without the Picture” (1979), a work which is notoriously difficult to define in terms of artistic genre and could be approached as sound art / video art (without the actual video). Barbara Bloom, finally, refers in her fake film trailer “The Diamond Lane” (1981) to a fictitious feature, an approach which differs significantly from the ones displayed by Sugimoto and Lawler. 

 

Since I am dealing with artworks of different media which incorporate the filmic medium in their individual ways, the issue of intermediality will play an important role in my considerations. After all, intermediality is a significant aspect of intericonicity.