‘Texts for Nothing (Waiting for-) #15’ (2011) is part of a series based on the writings of Samuel Beckett. In the artist’s own words: “Abandoned for years by the major critics of Beckett’s work and rarely included in anthologies of his work, ‘Texts for Nothing’ was seen as outside of the mainstream of Beckett’s writing. Previously viewed as somewhat of a pause in the oeuvre of Beckett, for me as an artist approaching his work, this writing, for my purposes, is quintessential Beckett, the perfect example of his particular artistic integrity. Beckett’s project as an artist has been instructive to me and touches on questions which occupy my own work, that is, a concern with meaning. One of many differences, of course, is that Beckett approaches the question of meaning from its absence, and in my work, I have been concerned with how meaning is made. But, that said, the approach can neither be obvious nor singular.”
The juxtaposition of a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, in addition to being an inspiration to Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot, presents, consequently, another layer to this discourse of presence and absence. Friedrich’s work, commonly consisting of a landscape with a minimal, yet distinct, human presence is the visual presentation of the human presence in nature. In this way, echoing the discourse of the sublime, Kosuth’s installation allows us to respond to the quotation with a question: then, who said that?