In abstract painting, there is an arbitrary relation between meaning and expression, and the meaning is instantial only, not systemic. As a consequence, an instance engenders unlimited readings, since there is no identifiable system of meaning to which the meaning of the instance can be attributed.
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In abstract painting, the relation between expression and meaning is arbitrary—not in the sense of random, but in the sense that it is not anchored in a shared semiotic system. A blue triangle in a cubist canvas or a swirl of pigment in a Pollock drip does not “mean” in the way a red traffic light does. It does not draw on a systemic convention to fix its significance. Instead, its meaning is instantial: it arises in the singular event of construal, in the particular way a viewer aligns with the work.
This distinction between systemic and instantial is crucial. Systemic meaning belongs to a semiotic resource shared across a community: when we see a musical staff, we know the notes encode pitch and duration; when we see written words, we draw on the systemic resources of language to interpret them. But in abstract painting, there is no such resource. The work does not belong to an established system of signs; it stands as an instance without systemic ground.
As a consequence, an abstract painting opens into an unlimited field of readings. By “unlimited” I do not mean chaotic, as though anything goes. Rather, the interpretation of an abstract work is not delimited by a systemic logic; it is constrained only by the contingencies of social formation, by the interpretive habits, discourses, and reflexive projections of those who engage with it. A Kandinsky composition might evoke “spiritual resonance” for one viewer, “chaotic energy” for another, and “mere decoration” for a third. None of these readings is mandated by the work itself; all are co-produced in the instant of encounter.
This is why making sense of abstract art often feels less like decoding a message than like participating in a reflexive loop. The work does not signify on its own; it provides a surface for projection, resonance, and construal. To “make sense” here is not to discover a hidden code, but to actualise a relation between oneself, the canvas, and the interpretive milieu in which both are embedded.
Curators and critics know this, which is why so much of the discourse around abstract art frames it rather than interprets it. Labels in galleries tell us about movements, techniques, and intentions, not about the “meaning” of the work itself. The meaning remains open, instantial, a negotiation between instance and interpreter.
In this way, abstract art exposes a truth that all semiosis conceals: that meaning is never simply in the sign, but always co-actualised in relation. Where systemic signs give us the illusion of stability, abstract painting refuses the system altogether, leaving us face-to-face with the contingency of sense-making itself.