The chair in front of the door

In creating his pieces, Joseph Kosuth usually uses quotations of writings and images that he inserts in a new context. In his work quotation and context become an indivisible whole that creates meaning; since, over time, context changes and signs stratify, no meaning can ever be termed definitive. So the artwork is only a pretext, since the text is something that can be read by anyone at any time. The author, who as such tends to disappear, is not a subject who expresses himself in personal terms but is rather a vehicle through which new meanings - and therefore new collective meanings - can take form.
Kosuth chose to work in the Loggia of the Podestà in San Gimignano. For centuries, this was the centre of city power while today especially the elderly citizens gather here. With its wealth of historic and human connotations, the site suggested the chance to highlight a text that Walter Benjamin had written about San Gimignano in his City Images (1925); in it, Benjamin refers to the local custom of sitting on the threshold of the house and therefore outside (but only men at the café). In effect this is a salient aspect of Italian life, a behaviour made possible by the climatic conditions that make it necessary to have a house (since a completely nomadic life would be too cold) but allow people to spend long periods of time outdoors.