The focus of Owens’ essay From Work to Frame, or, Is There Life After “The Death of the Author”? is how artistic production finds its conditions for success within a social universe, and therefore is an acknowledgement of conditions related to production and reception while incorporating an understanding of how authorship in artistic work can be realized. The shift goes, as the title announces, from the work to the frame, and at the same time to a determination of those conditions that make works appear as frames.

From Work to Frame was first published in English and Swedish in 1987 in the catalogue for the exhibition Implosion: A Postmodern Perspective at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. As S*I*G #12, the text is published in English and in its first German translation, alongside a preface by Hannes Loichinger, who is editor of this issue.