Artworks are usually exhibited with a text next to it.
A small piece of white cardboard with title, artist, year, dimensions, etc.

I’m not sure when it happened but those texts became longer and longer. It has gotten to the point where a lot of artworks have become completely unreadable without the accompanying text. The artwork then functions as a bookcover, an illustration of a verbal idea.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this in principle. There is a lot of great conceptual art that needs background information to be experienced. I love Piero Manzoni’s “Artist’s shit” or Gino de Dominicis “Invisible cube“.

But overall I think the text next to the artwork has created a lot of boring art. The energy of the work is not inside the work itself, it is in the description text. And the works tend to become too logical and rational because of this habit. These descriptions also prevent the viewer from having a personal first impression. I prefer to see a movie without director’s comments the first time I see it.

Ideally the work is the idea and the idea is the work, they aren’t separated.