Materiality as Dynamic Exchange

Bolt, Barbara. “Unimaginable Happenings: Material Movements in the Plane of Composition”. Deleuze and Contemporary Art. 2010

In her essay ‘Unimaginable Happenings: Material Movements in the plane of composition’, Barbara Bolt uses Deleuze and Guattari’s materialism to elevate painting as a medium. She begins her discussion of their ideas by establishing a ‘common sense or pre-existing concept of composition’ as referring to ‘the relation between form and content.’ (Bolt, Barbara. “Unimaginable Happenings: Material Movements in the Plane of Composition”. Deleuze and Contemporary Art. 2010. P 268) She goes on to specify that

“Content is concerned with the ‘subject matter, story or information that the
artwork seeks to communicate to the viewer’, whilst form is the result of the manipulation of the various (visual) elements and principles of design. In other words, ‘content is what artists want to say’ and ‘form is how they say it’ (Lauer and Pentak 1990:2).” (Ibid. P 268)


While Bolt claims that this is not what D & G refer to when they speak of composition, the fact that she mentions it at all establishes the idea of meaning as something already at a point of stasis from the outset. I believe Bolt misses the move away from ‘identity-thinking’ that is inherent in D& Gs’ materialism.

In Art Encounters: Deleuze and Guattari – Thought Beyond Representation Simon O’Sullivan attempts to account for their concept of materialism by talking about aesthetics, in an operational sense. This is a question of what changes are caused to the contingencies that culminate in a subject, when it is confronted by the sensatory means through which art registers. O’Sullivan quotes another writer on D & G to explain this exchange process a little in terms of material register.

“Massumi gives us the example of the carpenter, and his or her skills, competences and tools, ‘meeting’ a piece of wood, itself already the contraction of a past and of future potentialities. We might think of the artist’s ‘meeting’ with his or her materials, a more complex encounter perhaps, but of the same fundamental nature. This is a confrontation between a specific artist-subjectivity and specific materials, each of which themselves are already the envelopment of a potential.” (O’Sullivan, Simon. Art Encounters: Deleuze and Guattari – Thought Beyond Representation. Palgrave MacMillan: United Kingdom. 2006. P 21)


Although Bolt’s claim (which has no citation) that D & G are ‘quite adamant that the work of art is never produced by or for the sake of technique.’ (Bolt, Barbara. “Unimaginable Happenings: Material Movements in the Plane of Composition”. Deleuze and Contemporary Art. 2010. P 268) is right in a sense that art is not reducible to the technique of the artist, I would still say that in considering the event of art, that ‘form as content’ is a relevant way to think about work, when conceiving of it as a maker.