Why make things difficult for the viewer?

We are a consumer-society, and it seems to me, that art has become a passive ‘spectator sport’ to an extent unprecendented in history. I have always tried to work against this tendency by producing ‘occasions for interpretation’ rather than ‘objects for consumption’. I believe that the ability to produce rather than consume meanings, and the ability to think otherwise – ways of thinking to encouraged by the imperative to commodity production, ways condemned as a ‘waste of time’ – is fundamental to the goal of a truly, rather than nominally democratic society. I believe art is one of the few remaining areas of social activity where the attitude of critical engagement may still be encouraged – all the more reason then for art to engage with those issues which are critical.

— Victor Burgin, from a Letter to a Collector