Mona Lisa
Even well-known works such as the Mona Lisa are physically seen by only a very small percentage of the world. Because of this, these works are more often than not represented within the viewer purely by the memory of the most recent simulacrum the viewer has seen.
For example, most people have only seen a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, but very few have actually seen the painting in the flesh. The work's exact dimensions and materials are only known to a small percentage of the population; because of this, the work is in constant flux within the population's mind's eye. Plus, given that the current population of the world is 8.3 billion and growing, there are literally endless potential variations of not only the Mona Lisa, but of every work of art in existence.
This variable mental flux also allows the meaning of each work to shift from person to person and culture to culture; for example, within the Western world, the color white stands for purity, but in traditional Japanese culture, white frequently represents death. This ability for even the minimalist paintings of, for example, Robert Ryman to potentially change meaning by just transporting it from London to Tokyo makes it so that even the meaning of non-representational art has the potential to be in constant flux.
Be it contextual or cultural flux, or the flux that occurs within the viewer's memory of the last time they saw either the work or its simulacrum, a work of art is constantly changing both in scale and in meaning.
thaniel ion lee
