1. How many chairs are in Kosuth’s artwork? Explain your answer.
Between the chair, the photograph, and the dictionary definition of a chair, I believe that there two chairs evident in Kosuth’s work. I do not consider the definition of a chair to be an actual chair. This is because the words of the definition do not imitate the form of a chair themselves. Yes, the overall description describes a chair’s form; however, there is no visual element on the paper, even though a picture usually forms in one’s mind while reading the definition. This visual image cannot be touched. The chair in the photograph cannot be touched, either. The difference that makes the photographed chair different from the mental image is that the actual photograph pictures a chair that was actually there.
2. Which, if any, would Plato consider the real chair (the photograph, the wooden
chair, the dictionary definition, or none of them)? Explain your answer.
I think Socrates would consider the wooden chair to be the real chair of the three. The photographer of the chair is the imitator, similar to the painter described in the excerpts of Plato’s Republic. Plato would not consider the dictionary definition of a chair, because it, too, is an imitator. “The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring.” –Plato’s Republic. The artist who constructed the chair is the one true artist who started the design of the chair in the first place, therefore the wooden chair is the only real chair in Kosuth’s “One and Three Chairs.”
