His hermeneutic works represent a reaction against New Critical concepts that were omnipresent at the time, especially the idea that texts should be viewed as autonomous objects, without reference to authorial intent.

They amount to a formalist defense, positing the story as an autonomous object in which diverse readers perceive diverse ideas.

The overarching dynamic of the show is a reminder that paintings are not autonomous objects but are made by someone.

All this works, partly because nearly all of Ms. Eastman's paintings succeed as autonomous objects and mostly because she manages to make every mark count while appearing to do anything she pleases as soon as it occurs to her, no second thoughts.

He distinguishes between the composer, musical work as an autonomous object, and the activity of the listener.

She isn't an autonomous object, so there's no unknowability, no mystery - and no erotic tension.

In the end, though, only Mr. Gorlich manages to find an effective way to give his installation both the power of an autonomous object and the complex inflections that are possible only in a more personal creation.

Yet even Mr. Rykwert notes that the city is not an autonomous object; it is itself the effect of complex cultural transactions.

He tries to break away from the idea of the meme as an autonomous object parasitically replicating in passive human hosts.

"As a result," co-curator Drew Sawyer explains, "many of their works are now in the collections of major art museums and most often viewed as autonomous aesthetic objects."