The Uncertainty Principle

Within the realm of science, the uncertainty principle speaks of the fundamental limits of knowledge and measurement vis-à-vis the external world, and how the very act of seeing alters what is seen. Martin Herbert's The Uncertainty Principle is a collection of essays that reveals layers of unknowing and open-endedness within a diversity of contemporary art practices since the 1970s. If a work of art is always completed by the viewer, as Marcel Duchamp put it, then the works considered here equate completion with construction. In navigating us through a succession of artists' approaches, Herbert also discloses how constructed experiences of “not knowing” can lead to deep engagements with a range of specific issues and themes: from history to politics, from epistemology to mortality.

Martin Herbert is a writer and critic living in Tunbridge Wells, UK, and Berlin. He is associate editor of ArtReview and a regular contributor to Artforum, frieze, and Art Monthly, and has lectured in art schools internationally. His monograph Mark Wallinger, a comprehensive study of the British artist's career, was published in 2011.

Martin Herbert is a writer and critic based in Berlin. He is associate editor of ArtReview and contributes regularly to international art journals. He is the author of Mark Wallinger, The Uncertainty Principle (Sternberg Press), and Tell Them I Said No (Sternberg Press).