+ All Categories
Home > Documents > Article 267

Article 267

Date post: 06-Apr-2018
Category:
Upload: raph33
View: 219 times
Download: 0 times
Share this document with a friend
17
8/3/2019 Article 267 http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 1/17 Terry Smith One and Three Ideas: Conceptualism Before, During, and After Conceptual Art Tactically, conceptualism is no doubt the strongest position of the three; for the tired nominalist can lapse into conceptualism and still allay his puritanic conscience with the reflection that he has not quite taken to eating lotus with the Platonists. Ð Willard van Orman Quine 1 ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPhilosophers often add Ò-ismÓ to a term in order to highlight a distinct approach to a fundamental question, that is, to name a philosophical doctrine. For example, when it comes to universals, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy tells us that ÒConceptualism is a doctrine in philosophy intermediate between nominalism and realism that says universals exist only within the mind and have no external or substantial reality.Ó 2 There are other definitions, but the point about the use of Ò-ismÓ to name a philosophical doctrine is clear. For art critics, curators, and historians, however, Ò- ismsÓ have somewhat different purposes: they name movements in art, broadly shared approaches that have become styles or threaten to do so. During the heroic years of the modern movement, when critics, artists, or art historians first added Ò-ismÓ to a word, they usually meant what the suffix usually means in ordinary language: that x is like y , even excessively so. Often with ridicule as their aim, they highlighted a quality twice removed from the source of that particular art, from its authenticity. Thus ÒImpressionismÓ and ÒCubism,Ó neither of which names what is really going on in the art to which it refers: each takes up a banal misdescription and then exaggerates it into a ludicrous delusion on the part of the artists. The success of the early twentieth-century avant-gardes led to a plethora of Ò-ismsÓ that gradually lost these negative connotations and become almost normal descriptors. By mid-century, anyone could generate an Ò-ism,Ó and too many artists did so in their efforts to link their unique, often quite individual ways of making art to what they, or their promoters, hoped would be market success and art historical inevitability. When Willem de Kooning, at a meeting of artists in New York in 1951, said: ÒIt is disastrous to name ourselves,Ó his was a lone voice, quickly silenced by the tide that named all present Abstract Expressionists. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBy the 1960s this kind of naming had become so commonplace, so obvious a move, and such a sure pathway to premature institutionalization and incorporation, that many artists rejected it, to avoid being comfortably slotted into what they regarded as an ossified history of modernist avant-gardism. In the 1970s, for example, artists driven primarily by    e   -     f     l    u    x     j    o    u    r    n    a     l     #     2     9   Ñ     n    o    v    e    m     b    e    r     2     0     1     1     T    e    r    r    y     S    m     i    t     h     O    n    e    a    n     d     T     h    r    e    e     I     d    e    a    s    :     C    o    n    c    e    p     t    u    a     l     i    s    m      B    e     f    o    r    e  ,     D    u    r     i    n    g  ,    a    n     d     A     f     t    e    r     C    o    n    c    e    p     t    u    a     l     A    r     t     0     1     /     1     7 11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST
Transcript
Page 1: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 1/17

Terry Smith

One and ThreeIdeas:

ConceptualismBefore, During,and AfterConceptual Art

Tactically, conceptualism is no doubt thestrongest position of the three; for the tirednominalist can lapse into conceptualismand still allay his puritanic conscience withthe reflection that he has not quite taken toeating lotus with the Platonists.

Ð Willard van Orman Quine1

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPhilosophers often add Ò-ismÓ to a term inorder to highlight a distinct approach to afundamental question, that is, to name aphilosophical doctrine. For example, when itcomes to universals, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy tells us that ÒConceptualism is adoctrine in philosophy intermediate betweennominalism and realism that says universalsexist only within the mind and have no externalor substantial reality.Ó2 There are otherdefinitions, but the point about the use of Ò-ismÓto name a philosophical doctrine is clear. For art

critics, curators, and historians, however, Ò-ismsÓ have somewhat different purposes: theyname movements in art, broadly sharedapproaches that have become styles or threatento do so. During the heroic years of the modernmovement, when critics, artists, or art historiansfirst added Ò-ismÓ to a word, they usually meantwhat the suffix usually means in ordinarylanguage: that x is like y , even excessively so.Often with ridicule as their aim, they highlighteda quality twice removed from the source of thatparticular art, from its authenticity. ThusÒImpressionismÓ and ÒCubism,Ó neither of whichnames what is really going on in the art to whichit refers: each takes up a banal misdescriptionand then exaggerates it into a ludicrous delusionon the part of the artists. The success of theearly twentieth-century avant-gardes led to aplethora of Ò-ismsÓ that gradually lost thesenegative connotations and become almostnormal descriptors. By mid-century, anyonecould generate an Ò-ism,Ó and too many artistsdid so in their efforts to link their unique, oftenquite individual ways of making art to what they,or their promoters, hoped would be market

success and art historical inevitability. WhenWillem de Kooning, at a meeting of artists in NewYork in 1951, said: ÒIt is disastrous to nameourselves,Ó his was a lone voice, quickly silencedby the tide that named all present AbstractExpressionists.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBy the 1960s this kind of naming hadbecome so commonplace, so obvious a move,and such a sure pathway to prematureinstitutionalization and incorporation, that manyartists rejected it, to avoid being comfortablyslotted into what they regarded as an ossified

history of modernist avant-gardism. In the1970s, for example, artists driven primarily by

   e  -    f    l   u   x    j   o   u   r   n   a    l    #    2    9

  Ñ    n   o   v   e   m    b   e   r    2    0    1    1    T   e   r   r   y    S   m    i   t    h

    O   n   e   a   n    d    T    h   r   e   e    I    d   e

   a   s   :    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    i   s   m     B

   e    f   o   r   e ,

    D   u   r    i   n   g ,   a   n    d    A

    f    t   e   r    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    A   r    t

    0    1    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 2: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 2/17

Art and Language, Art andLanguage Australia, 1975.

political concerns consciously blocked efforts todesignate their work as belonging to a ÒpoliticalartÓ movement. Yet for some artists, longexcluded from any kind of historical recognition,this was a risk worth taking: feminist artistsemphasized their feminism, for instance,precisely because it connected their practice tothe broader social movement to vindicate therights of women.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs the artists most acutely aware of thepowers and the pitfalls of exactly theseprocesses, conceptual artists refused toembrace the term ÒconceptualismÓ during the1960s, Õ70s, and Õ80s. They were, however, happyto use terms such as ÒconceptualÓ for their work,because questioning the concept of art wasprecisely the main point of their practice. As weshall see, they foresaw that the tag ÒConceptualArtÓ would inevitably be associated with theirwork, and thus tie it too closely to art that hadalready resolved its problems. Their goal was to

keep their art (practice) problematic tothemselves by keeping it at a (critical) distancefrom Art (as an institution). They thereforesought to prevent the precipitous labeling oftheir art by adopting one or both of twostrategies: insist that the term ÒconceptualÓ beapplied so broadly (describing any art no longer

governed by a traditional medium) as to bemeaningless, or so narrowly (indicating onlylanguage-based art that dealt with Art per se) asto be offensive to almost everyone.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is a nice paradox that the termÒconceptualismÓ came into art world existenceafter the advent of Conceptual art in majorcenters such as New York and London Ð mostprominently and programmatically in the

exhibition ÒGlobal Conceptualism: Points ofOrigin, 1950sÐ1980sÓ at the Queens Museum ofArt in New York in 1999 Ð mainly in order tohighlight the fact that innovative, experimentalart practices occurred in the Soviet Union,Japan, South America, and elsewhere prior to, atthe same time as, and after the European and USinitiatives that had come to seem paradigmatic,and to claim that these practices were moresocially and politically engaged Ð and thus morerelevant to their present, better models fortodayÕs art, and, in these senses, better art Ð

than the well-known Euro-American exemplars. Iexplored a variant of this idea Ð thatconceptualism was an outcome of some artistsÕincreased global mobility Ð in my selections forthe ÒGlobal ConceptualismÓ exhibition, and in mycatalogue essay, ÒPeripheries in Motion:Conceptualism and Conceptual Art in Australia

    0    2    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 3: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 3/17

Josef Kosuth, Art as Idea as Idea (Meaning), 1967. Photostat on paper mounted on wood.

    0    3    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 4: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 4/17

and New Zealand.Ó3 Retrospection of this kindhas also shone spotlights on what were onceregarded as minor movements in Euro-Americanart (Fluxus, for example).ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe question posed by the exhibitionÒTraffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965Ð1980,Ópresented at the University of Toronto ArtGalleries in 2010, is whether a similar valuingstructure might be applied to certain strands in

art made in Canada from the 1960s to thepresent. Even though Canadian artists wereconspicuously absent from ÒGlobalConceptualism,Ó certain artists have since beenvalued as contributors to the internationaltendency. Thus the exhibition asks us to look inmore detail at work of the time made throughoutthe regions of Canada and consider whetherperhaps this valuing can be extended to them.There is no suggestion that this art wasnationalistic Ð on the contrary, it was everywherebased on skepticism about official national

culture-construction. The implication is thatregional conceptualisms existed Ð that is, thatconceptualist developments (in the broadestsense) occurred differently in each of the distinctregions of Canada. Again, the implication isskeptical: in every case it is about regionality intransition, not a self-satisfied parochialism.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTriggered by remarks made by some of thekey artists back in the day, I wish to revisit theterms ÒConceptual artÓ and ÒconceptualismÓ asindications of what was at stake in theunraveling of late modern art during the 1960sand in artÕs embrace of contemporaneity since. Iwill do so by asking what conceptualism wasbefore, during, and after Conceptual art, and Iwill show that there were at least one, usuallytwo, and sometimes three conceptions ofconceptualism in play at each moment Ð andthat these were in play, differently althoughconnectedly, in various places, at each of thesetimes.

Pop or Conceptual? Or both and neither?Let me begin with the question as seen fromwithin orthodox art historical narratives, as a

matter of the meaning of style, a concern of arthistorians. I start from before Conceptual art wasnamed as a style, before the termÒconceptualismÓ had any currency, to see whatmight count as Conceptual art in thatcircumstance.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIan Burn, in conversation in late 1972, saidof Joseph KosuthÕs Art as Idea works: ÒIf theywere made in 1965 like he claims, they are PopArt. If they were made in 1967Ð8, when they wereexhibited, then they are among the firstconceptual works, strictly speaking.Ó In his 1970

essay ÒConceptual Art as Art,Ó Burn gave theseworks this latter dating and characterized them

as key examples of the Òstrict form of ConceptualArtÓ because they were analytic of the nature ofart, their (minimal) appearance being of the mostminimal relevance.4 Why did an artist with such acritical attitude toward orthodox art historyÕspuerile dependence on style terms apply suchcrude criteria to the work of a close colleague?5

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊKosuthÕs response was outrage at applyingsuch anti-conceptual criteria to such work: he

was an art student who had the ideas but not theresources to realize them; by the time he didhave these resources a few years later, everyone(including Burn) was dating their work to themoment of conception Ð immediacy was the newcurrency.6

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn one sense KosuthÕs One and Three Chairs(1965) is Pop-like in that its statement aboutwhat constitutes a sign is all there, all at once,and obvious, as in your face as RichardHamiltonÕs 1956 collage Just what is it thatmakes todayÕs homes so different, so appealing?,

but without the fascinated irony that informs theBritish artistÕs perspective. To an observeroutside the US sphere of cultural influence Ð or,more accurately, at its waxing and waningborders Ð One and Three Chairs might seem tooffer viewers an open choice as to which itemseems the most attractive constituent ofÒchairness,Ó thereby reducing spectatorship tosupermarketlike art consumption, and artmakingto the provision of competitive goods.7 To theextent that this is true, Conceptual art that turnson overt demonstration or the instantiation of anidea (as does much of the better known andeasily illustrated work Ð think Baldessari,Acconci, or Huebler) shares something with whatmight be called ordinary language Pop art, thatwhich recycles the visual codes of consumerculture.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBut the matter does not end there. In myview, the invitation to look in One and ThreeChairs is at least as subtle as it is in key works onthis subject by Rauschenberg, Johns, and Warholin its conceptual questioning of what it is to see,what an image might be, what an idea looks like.These artists regularly juxtaposed photographs

and objects such as actual chairs (inRauschenbergÕs Pilgrim, for example), or evokedblack-and-white photography and overtlydisplayed the tools that made them (JohnsÕsPeriscope (Hart Crane), 1963, for example).WarholÕs Dance Diagram (ÒThe Lindy Tuck-InTurn-ManÓ), 1963, is an appropriation of anillustration, but it is also a demonstration ofwhat constitutes a visual sign, especially whendisplayed, as he preferred, on the floor. Indeed,Warhol now seems the most nakedly conceptualof artists (in this pre-Conceptual art moment),

precisely in his instinct for setting out one visualidea at a time, in showing an image as an idea, in

   e  -    f    l   u   x    j   o   u   r   n   a    l    #    2    9

  Ñ    n   o   v   e   m    b   e   r    2    0    1    1    T   e   r   r   y    S   m    i   t    h

    O   n   e   a   n    d    T    h   r   e   e    I    d   e

   a   s   :    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    i   s   m     B

   e    f   o   r   e ,

    D   u   r    i   n   g ,   a   n    d    A

    f    t   e   r    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    A   r    t

    0    4    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 5: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 5/17

Josef Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965.

    0    5    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 6: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 6/17

making artworks that plainly demonstrated howvisual ideas achieved appearance in the culture,in the visual culture, in popular imagination, inunArt, in America. The idea-image, for him, wasin David AntinÕs brilliant perception, aÒdeteriorated image.Ó8

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThere were of course many others striving topicture the many dichotomies afforded by theidea-image interplay that was taking shape at

the time: a random list must include Guy Debord,with his films such as Hurlements en faveur deSade (1952) and his collaborations with AsgerJorn; concrete poets of all kinds; Jim Dine;Kaprow, with his early happenings; Ed Ruscha;and many others, all of whom converge with Popin certain ways, although they, like the artistsmentioned above, were on a track much moreinteresting than that which can be encompassedby that term. In Canada, Greg CurnoeÕs workthroughout the 1960s offers a fascinatinginstance of a figurative painter, alert to the

stylistics of Pop and flat color abstraction, yet,like Kurt Schwitters, drawn irresistibly to thepotency of words and texts as they occur in theflow and stuff of everyday life. Add to this aWittgensteinian consciousness that we are allproducts of our language-worlds, and aninteresting outcome is assured. Thus, in WestingHouse Workers (1962), the names of a group oflaborers are stamped out on a sheet that seemstaken from a factory cafeteria notice board, whileRow of Words on My Mind #1 (1962) stamps out aset of names of people, things, promises, and soforth, that seem as random as anyoneÕs everydayruminations. By 1967, however, Curnoe hadevidently seen tautology-based conceptualism(either through reproductions or via the agency ofGreg Ferguson): Front Center Windows (1967) is ablue vertical rectangle stamped with blackletters that describe a fa•ade in the language ofa builderÕs report, while Non-Figurative Picture(1968) is a vertical column stamped with theletters of the alphabet.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThese examples tell us that the question ÒIsit Pop or Conceptual art?Ó is at best aprovocation (as it was for Burn), and at worst a

badly formulated misunderstanding of thedeeper stakes of both kinds of work. Rather, wecan see that various kinds of conceptualizationinspired the most inventive artists of the latemodern era, and that the conceptual qualities oftheir work were among its most important. Thisis the first, the most rooted, sense in which thethree ideas of what it is for art to be conceptualcould count as one idea: the term ÒconceptualÓas an adjective is most fitting to this sense. Quiteproperly, this basic usage precedes any realusage of the terms ÒconceptualismÓ and

ÒConceptual artÓ in art discourse, as these arederivative from it. It permits us this proposition,

the first part of a proposal that I advance Ð withfull awareness of how paradoxical a gesture it isÐ as Òa theory of conceptualismÓ:

1. At its various beginnings, conceptualismwas a set of practices for interrogatingwhat it was for perceiving subjects andperceived objects to be in the world (that is,it was an inquiry into the minimal situations

in which art might be possible).9

Dan Graham, March 31, 1966.

A work of art becomes consequential whenit counts as art

It is lazy-mindedness to say that all art thatevidently reflects on its own medium, that doesso in ways unusual enough to raise the questionÒIs this art?,Ó qualifies as conceptual. There is awidespread sense, in todayÕs sloppy art babble,that any art that has resulted from the artisthaving any kind of idea is Òconceptual.Ó Not so.You have to show that particular works, or groupsof works, or a set of protocols, or a practice didthese things consciously as opposed to byinstinct, intelligently as distinct from intuitively,

and did so effectively, with impact, withconsequence.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOn a number of occasions in conversation,Joseph Kosuth has pooh-poohed as purepedantry my referencing Henry FlyntÕs use of theterm ÒConcept ArtÓ in 1961, despite the fact thatit is the first documented usage in an artcontext.10 ÒWho was this Flynt? A nobody. Whoheard him, who knew of him, who cared what hesaid? So what if some thirteenth-centuryChinese painter threw ink around in ways thatlook Pollock-like, or that Max Ernst did?Ó To

Kosuth, what counts is not who said what whenas a matter of plain record, or what was done in

   e  -    f    l   u   x    j   o   u   r   n   a    l    #    2    9

  Ñ    n   o   v   e   m    b   e   r    2    0    1    1    T   e   r   r   y    S   m    i   t    h

    O   n   e   a   n    d    T    h   r   e   e    I    d   e

   a   s   :    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    i   s   m     B

   e    f   o   r   e ,

    D   u   r    i   n   g ,   a   n    d    A

    f    t   e   r    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    A   r    t

    0    6    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 7: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 7/17

some isolated, adventitious circumstance, butwhether the utterance, the work, the propositioncounted in the dominant art discourse of thetime. This alerts us to the internal struggle,among artists, critics, and theorists Ð that is,within art discourse itself Ð as to what was atstake in Conceptual art and conceptualism aspractices of art.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThus KosuthÕs famous statement, in ÒArt

After Philosophy,Ó that ÒAll art (after Duchamp) isconceptual (in nature) because art only existsconceptuallyÓ is not to be taken to mean that allart influenced by Duchampian strategies isconceptual, and that other art is some other kindof art. It means that only Duchampian art is trulyart, and that other art is not art preciselybecause it does not take on the challenge offraming new propositions about art and as art.11

Robert Morris, Card File, 1962.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFrom this perspective, Robert Morris has amuch stronger claim to consequence in workssuch as Card File (1962): these overtly pit thecomplexity of his actual life and self against thelimited information contained in official

descriptions of a person. Two Untitled works of1962 (recently added to MoMAÕs collection) are

nothing more, but no less, than grey gouachepainted over sheets of newspaper to the point ofnearly obliterating the images and text. But didMorris go on with this particular line of inquiry? Ashort answer would be that it became one of themany lines that he has since pursued, but alonger answer is needed to do justice to such aprofound oeuvre.12

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn Poland, Roman Opałka began his

ÒinfinityÓ paintings in 1965, sizing them to hisstudio doorway, beside which he has had himselfphotographed as each one is completed. OnKawara began traveling the world and sendingdaily postcards in 1959, then started making adate painting every day in 1966, and two yearslater embarked on the production of his One-Hundred Year Calendar that lists everyone hemeets each day. Examples of such totalcommitment to applying a routine to a life,knowing that the two are fundamentallyincompatible, abound. They may be found all

over the world during this period, and areconstantly being taken up nowadays by youngartists (Emese Benczœr, for example). I think thatwe are getting close to the core of conceptualismworthy of the name, and to the basis of its appealto serious young artists today: it is something todo with rigor, without cause, and with implacablecommitment in the face of meaninglessness. So,in retrospect, it is no surprise that such a spiritshould emerge from within the conflictedconfusions of the mid- and later 1960s.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSol LeWittÕs statement, in his 1967ÒParagraphs on Conceptual Art,Ó is famous:

In conceptual art the idea or concept is themost important aspect of the work. Whenan artist uses a conceptual form of art, itmeans that all of the planning anddecisions are made beforehand and theexecution is a perfunctory affair. The ideabecomes a machine that makes the art.13

This seems clear to the point of being classical(indeed, the last sentence is one of the epigramsto ÒArt After PhilosophyÓ). But we need to ask:

what did LeWitt mean by Òthe idea or conceptÓ?If one examines closely the nature of theseparagraphs, as an artistÕs statement Ð that is, ifyou put them back into the context of his ownpractice and see them as first and foremost astatement of the principles governing thatpractice (not all possible practice, not thepractice most desired of all artists from now on)Ð then it becomes obvious that what LeWittmeant by an idea was a geometrical figure, andwhat he meant by a concept was a procedure forcarrying out the realization of this idea, for

example, as a singularity or as a specifiedsequence.

    0    7    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 8: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 8/17

Karl Beveridge and Carole CondŽ, ItÕs Still Privileged Art, 1976. Comic book.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIf, however, you read closely the 1969ÒSentences on Conceptual ArtÓ [copies of thehandwritten and corrected versions of 1968 haverecently come to light], you are immediatelythrown into the paradox just mentioned:ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ1. Conceptual artists are mystics ratherthan rationalists. They leap to conclusions thatlogic cannot reach.2. Rational judgments repeat rational judgments.

3. Irrational judgments lead to new experience.4. Formal art is essentially rational.5. Irrational thoughts should be followedabsolutely and logically.14

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe contrast between rationality andmysticism is weak, and soon disappears. Moreimportant is that here we can see awareness ofthe reach but also the limits of ideas andconcepts narrowly defined. It is their potential tocreate chaos, disorder, and revolution thatcomes to be valued, thus the peculiar poignancy

of the proposals from visiting artists Ð to berealized by students, and, occasionally, theartists themselves Ð in David AskevoldÕs ProjectsClass at NSCAD from 1969 forward. Thepostcards of the instructions, shown in theÒTrafficÓ exhibition, are exquisite mementoes ofeach artistÕs unique, distinctive mode of thought.

More generally, objectivity was not the point:rather, rationality had to be shown to be crazy bybeing enacted literally; the Organization Manwas nuts, viz. General Idea, Pilot (1977).ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLet us return to One and Three Chairs andsee whether it meets these deeper criteria ÐKosuthÕs own Ð of what counts as conceptual. Inthe most immediate sense, it looks like a simpledemonstration. Signified + signifier = sign. All

there, all at once. A rose is a rose is a rose. Butthere are two signifiers, after all, which open upa space of ambiguity (which may be closed againwhen we read the work as an illustration ofPlatoÕs three stages of knowledge). The projectbecomes more interesting when we realize thatother chairs could be used under the same title,and other objects Ð for example, a shovel, ˆ laDuchampÕs In Advance of the Broken Arm, anauthorized replica of which is owned by Kosuth.The point is that One and Three Chairs is not aone-off, singular visual statement: it is an

instantiation of a proposition that may berealized using any matching set of elements. Likemany other works conceived at the time, it is anexemplification of an act of thought. KosuthÕsÒArt as IdeaÓ series seems to be a set oftautological objects: actually, they are visualpropositions about themselves as signifying

    0    8    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 9: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 9/17

instances, presented as Art (or Art as Idea asIdea) Ð on the postÐAd Reinhardt grounds thatthat is all that art, in conscience, at this time,can be.15

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA step forward was to take statedpropositions as thesaural, which opens out theirclosure, their two-way tautology, as Kosuth didwhen he placed thesaural categories innewspapers in his Second Investigation (1968Ð9).

In a parallel way Mel RamsdenÕs Secret Painting,made in 1967 in London en route to New York,becomes a comment on the limits of painting asa practice. Such questioning could beconsequential: it released artists elsewhere inthe world to begin an interrogative practice. Forexample, Robert MacPherson in the 1970s inBrisbane deployed this strategy to appropriateordinary language use Ð in his case, roadsidesigns. So did Greg Curnoe, in his bannerpaintings of the 1980s.

Yoko Ono, Painting to Let the Evening Light Go Through, 1966.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPropositionality Ð its apparently categoricalforce, but also its materiality and itsprovisionality Ð is what language-basedconceptualism recurs to: it is its core, from whichit opens out again. First this is understoodspatially (sculpture is residual here), Êas in Dan

GrahamÕs March 31, 1966, a description thatevokes a spatial zooming beyond spatiality. (His

Schema for Aspen magazine, and for the firstissue of Art-Language, is his masterwork). Then itis understood as a phenomenon of perception(painting is residual here), as in Ian BurnÕs NoObject Implies the Existence of Any Other (1967).This is, in fact, a thought that is impossible tohave in a literal sense: you cannot think the ideaof an object not implying another object withoutthinking about at least two objects, one and an

other; in front of an object made to be seen by another (us), consisting of a statement on a mirrorthat cannot but show you yourself and otherobjects. (That is, it demonstrates the rest ofHobbesÕs statement, ÒÉthat is, if we considerthese objects in themselves and never lookbeyond the ideas that inform them.Ó) Yoko Onowas closer to Hobbes in her 1961 ÒproposalÓ:Painting to Let the Evening Light Go Through.BurnÕs Xerox Book (1968) is more resolute: itembodies the idea of a tautological process.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLeWittÕs 35th and last sentence read:

ÒThese sentences comment on art, but are notart.Ó The editorial to the first issue of Art-Language, in which these sentences appeared in1969, asked itself the question, ÒWhat wouldfollow [for the art community of language users]if this editorial itself came up for the count as awork of art?ÓÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is these innovations that allow us torecognize the second proposition in my theory ofconceptualism:

2. That, as well as being a set of practicesfor interrogating what it was for perceivingsubjects and perceived objects to be in theworld (that is, it was an inquiry into theminimal situations in which art might bepossible), conceptualism was also a furtherintegrated set of practices for interrogatingthe conditions under which the firstinterrogation becomes possible andnecessary (that is, an inquiry into themaximal conditions for art to be thought).

Conceptual Art Arrives

Conceptual Art arrives as a paradoxicalsupplement, and art-institutional instantiation,of the interaction between these twoapproaches. By 1970 we were well inside an artmovement, as evidenced by the number ofbooks, exhibitions, articles, and so forth, withIdea Art, Konzept Kunst, and so on, in their titles.This includes Lucy LippardÕs exhibitions and theSix Years book, as well as exhibitions such asÒ45¡30'N-73¡36'W + Inventory,Ó presented inMontreal in 1971 by Gary Coward with ArthurBardo and Bill Vazan.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊCommon consensus now is that the full-glare moment of art-world and public recognition

    0    9    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 10: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 10/17

Luis Camnitzer, Uruguayan Torture Series, 1983Ð4.

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 11: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 11/17

was the 1970 exhibition ÒConceptual Art,Conceptual Aspects,Ó curated by Donald Karshanat the New York Cultural Center (with Kosuth andBurn as Òghost curatorsÓ). Note that the doublehas already appeared: yes, there is coreConceptual art, but there is also art that hassome conceptual qualities (ÒaspectsÓ), that is,there is also conceptualist art.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBut there was, by 1971, a big shift under

way within the movement itself, leading to thethird element of my theory:

3. The conditions Ð social, languaged,cultural, and political Ð of practices (1) and(2) were problematized, as wascommunicative exchange as such (that is,inquiry became an active engagement inthe pragmatic conditions that mightgenerate a defeasible sociality).

Martha Wilson, Chauvinistic Pieces, 1971.

Put more simply, if Art & LanguageÕs self-critiquewas at the core of conceptualism at this time (asin the indexing projects such as Index 01, 1972,at documenta 5), other artists were taking upthese analytical procedures and applying themto real-life situations. Obviously, this occurred

differently in different places, and differentlyagain for artists in transit between them. Well-known examples are Hans HaackeÕs Shapolsky et. al (1971) and Mary KellyÕs Post-PartumDocument (1973Ð9). Less known are MarthaWilsonÕs Chauvinistic Pieces, 1971: these are anextraordinary application of nominativegeneralities to life situations so as to bring outthe absurd gap between the two, and the powerstructures built into them. For instance,Unknown Piece has this instruction: ÒA woman isprevented from knowing the identity of her

partner (sleeping pill, blindfold, total darkness)with certainty. On the evidence the childÕs

features give her, she guesses who she sleptwith.Ó Determined Piece: ÒA woman selects acouple for the genetic features she admires(good teeth, curly hair, green eyes, etc.) andraises their baby.Ó Chauvinistic Piece: ÒA man isinjected with the hormones that producesymptoms of motherhood.Ó It is as if the 1960s,far from being the moment of free love and soforth, was already organized along the lines of

PlatoÕs Republic.16

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTransformations occurred within Art &Language, such that its work joined the thirdsense I have identified. We realized that ourextreme adoption of avant-garde strategies wasbelated, was infused with a sense that we werebeing avant-gardists after the death of the form.When Allan Kaprow invited me to lecture atCalArts in 1974, he introduced me as Òa livingdinosaur, an actual avant-gardist.Ó Thus wemoved to embed our practice in the world,starting with ourselves as actors in the art

world.17

 Blurting in A&L (1973) enables readers toenter a conversation and shape it according totheir own preferences; Draft for an Anti-Textbookwas a 1974 issue of Art-Language that, amongother things, took on provincialism in theory; theexhibitions recorded in Art & Language Australia(1975) did so in practice. The three issues of TheFox (1975Ð6) constitute the groupÕs most directassault on the modernist art world. Ian Burn,Nigel Lendon, and I continued this kind of work inAustralia when we returned in the mid-1970s,creating an Art & Working Life movement thatpersists, in a dispersed fashion, to this day.18

Karl Beveridge and Carole CondŽÕs comic bookItÕs Still Privileged Art (1976) was based onMaoist practices of constant self-criticism; theCultural Revolution comes to the New York artworld (we saw a lot of these publications inChinatown).19 I cannot overstress how importantcritical conceptualism was for the success ofwork with trade unions and dissident groups inAustralia, Toronto, and elsewhere, and howimportant this particular commitment toconsequence remains for subsequent artists ofmajor caliber (such as Jeff Wall and Allan

Sekula), as well as for the hundreds of artistcollectives that operate all over the world todaywith this kind of work as part of theirinspirational armory.

Conceptualism Already ReduxNow we arrive at the moment after conceptualart, when ÒconceptualismÓ appeared as a term inart discourse. Let us examine it from the point ofview of the ÒtheoryÓ I have advanced. The keyquestion will be: are we looking at delayed, orbelated, or simply particular, peculiar, and other

instances of (1) and (2), a local instance of (3), oris this a fourth sense/term/proposition that must

    1    1    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 12: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 12/17

Joseph Kosuth, Clock (One and Five), 1965. Clock, photograph and printed texts.

be added to the three so far advanced? Myanswer will be: yes, no, and yes. One and threeideas, non-contemporaneously andcontemporaneously, again. I will explore twocases among the many that arose during theseyears all over the world.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhen Boris Groys coined the term ÒMoscowRomantic ConceptualismÓ in 1979, he created averbal artifact that, I believe, attempted to stand

at the same kind of critical (ironic yet implicated)distance from international art discourse, and toits own circumstances of production, as heunderstood the art itself to be. Writing forreaders in Russia (knowing that the circulation ofhis essay there would be clandestine), and forreaders in France, who would presumably read itin English, he wanted to draw attention to howdeeply embedded this kind of work was in thespecific conditions of what it was to makeÒapartment artÓ in Moscow, to the awkward,embattled, ironic inwardness of the work (the

artists wished to be anywhere but Moscow, butcould not be). Similarly, in a society that ignoredor repressed them, and was condemned to theskeptical resignation that filled Òthe RussiansoulÓ like a lead balloon, the artists could onlydream of being regarded as paragons ofheightened subjectivism like the German and

English Romantics. But dream they did Ð andwhy not; dreams are cheap. Finally, their artstood at a deliberate distance from the concernsand character of US and European Conceptualart as we have discussed it. Thus, byÒConceptualismÓ Groys meant that this art waslike such art in its self-reflective character, but inreverse, precisely in its deliberate effort to beintuitive, allusive, affective Ð that is,

nonconceptual. In other words, each term withinGroysÕs label had its opposite built into it Ð thusits acuity, as an art critical artifact.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn the 1979 issue of A-YA, the Englishtranslation of GroysÕs essay had some oddities. Itoffers two definitions, the first of which statesthat ÒThe word ÔconceptualismÕ may beunderstood in the narrower sense as designatinga specific artistic movement clearly limited toplace, time and origin.Ó20 The revised translationin History Becomes Form adds the phrase Òandlimited to a specific number of practitionersÓ to

this sentence.21

The reference here is to US andEuropean Conceptual art. The second definitionis this:

Or, it may be interpreted more broadly, byreferring to any attempt to withdraw fromconsidering art works as material objects

    1    2    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 13: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 13/17

intended for contemplation and aestheticevaluation. Instead, it could encouragesolicitation and formation of the conditionsthat determine the viewerÕs perception ofthe work of art, the process of its inceptionby the artist, its relation to factors in theenvironment, and its temporal status.22 

The recent translation changes the last two ideas

to Òits positioning in a certain context, and itshistorical status.Ó This ties the description moreclosely to the Moscow group, and to artconcerned with art, but it remains rathergeneral.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÒRomanticÓ got dropped from the term inthe years after 1989, when this art (as distinctfrom the modernist, informal, protest art) beganto be read as a prefiguration of the collapse ofthe Soviet system, and as the basis for allsubsequent art in Russia of any seriousness.GroysÕs pragmatism enables us to see other

artists carrying on the spirit of the MoscowRomantic Conceptualists, albeit in equallyunorthodox ways. His key exemplars are AndreiMonastyrsky and the Collective Actions group,which dedicated itself to actions that heightenedthe specificity of everyday life while remaining,at the same time, scarcely distinguishable fromit. The Medical Hermeneutics group made ÒworkÓfrom speculation about whether such actionswere art or life.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo me, the real parallels in work such as IlyaKabakovÕs Answers of the Experimental Group(1971) Ð the originary moment of ÒMoscowConceptualism,Ó according to Matthew JesseJackson Ð are with the interrogatory nature ofthe late 1950s / early 1960s work of Johns,Rauschenberg, and Warhol, which I havesuggested is conceptual in the broad sense ofthe term.23 More precisely, it accords with myfirst proposition above, that conceptualism was,at its various beginnings, a set of practices forinterrogating what it was for perceiving subjectsand perceived objects to be in the world, and theminimal situations in which art might bepossible. Moscow Conceptualism is not

consonant with my second proposition,exemplified by the Adornoesque negativecriticality of Kosuth et al., yet it is in quitespecific ways an instance of the third. The factthat it was produced after theinstitutionalization of Conceptual art means thatone element in its makeup was a refusal of suchart, a sense that adopting its modes would beirrelevant to local concerns and to localaudiences. I do not see any artist working in theSoviet sphere as producing classical Conceptualart Ð indeed, there is no reason to expect that

any one would wish to do so. On the other hand,groups such as Collective Actions and Medical

Hermeneutics and a number of individual artistswere, in the 1970s and 1980s, making art in acontext where they were aware of conceptual artbefore and during Conceptual art, and werecontemporaries with conceptualist art after it, sothey made their choices accordingly. Again, thework emerges out of the concerns expressed inmy third proposition. If parallels have to befound, it is closest to Fluxus in Europe.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn his otherwise excellent survey, Jacksonnever questions the term ÒMoscowConceptualism.Ó There are, however, extensivediscussions of it, along with a range of otherterms that were in use at the time and that havebeen developed since, in the new book edited byAlla Rosenfeld, Moscow Conceptualism inContext.24 The most detailed account is ÒTheBanner Without a Slogan: Definitions andSources of Moscow ConceptualismÓ by MarekBartelik, who concludes a useful survey bywarning us against the danger of those who

would manage the politics of memory:

It is crucial, therefore, to assure that thehistory of the movement not be reduced toa few textbook names of artists at theexpense of others who for some reason oranother fell out of the picture. In otherwords, our history of MoscowConceptualism should be inclusive ratherthan exclusive of as many artists aspossible. After all, it was MoscowConceptualismÕs ethereal, dispersed, andfragmentary nature Ð as opposed to theofficial, solid, and permanent nature ofSocialist Realism and its correlates Ð thathelped its development and survival formore than twenty years, and thatconstitutes its unique value for todayÕsaudiences in both Russia and the West.25

This is well meant, but it does not tackle thepoint about consequence. A similar politics ofhope drove the curatorial project that has beenmost influential in defining the termÒconceptualismÓ in art discourse in recent

decades. In their foreword to GlobalConceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950sÐ1980s(New York: Queens Museum of Art, 1999), LuisCamnitzer, Jane Farver, and Rachel Weissdistinguish two periods, Òtwo relatively distinctwaves of activityÓ: the late 1950s to around 1973,during which time worldwide political changesled artists to call into question the underlyingideas of art and its institutional systems, and themid-1970s to the end of the 1980s, when artistsmostly outside Euro-America abandonedformalist or traditional art practices for

conceptualist art.26 As they write:

   e  -    f    l   u   x    j   o   u   r   n   a    l    #    2    9

  Ñ    n   o   v   e   m    b   e   r    2    0    1    1    T   e   r   r   y    S   m    i   t    h

    O   n   e   a   n    d    T    h   r   e   e    I    d   e

   a   s   :    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    i   s   m     B

   e    f   o   r   e ,

    D   u   r    i   n   g ,   a   n    d    A

    f    t   e   r    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    A   r    t

    1    3    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 14: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 14/17

It is important to delineate a cleardistinction between conceptual art as aterm used to denote an essentiallyformalist practice developed in the wake ofminimalism, and conceptualism, whichbroke decisively from the historicaldependence of art upon physical form andits visual appreciation. Conceptualism wasa broader attitudinal expression that

summarized a wide array of works andpractices which, in radically reducing therole of the art object, reimagined thepossibilities of art vis-ˆ-vis the social,political and economic realities withinwhich it was being made. Its informalityand affinity for collectivity madeconceptualism attractive to those artistswho yearned for a more direct engagementwith the public during those intense,transformative periods. For them, the de-emphasis Ð or the dematerialization Ð of

the object allowed the artistic energies tomove from the object to the conduct ofart.27

The implication is that Euro-American styleConceptual art Ð even as it came to dominateunderstandings of what counted as conceptualart Ð amounted to little more than an essentiallyformalist critique of minimalism. It was aninternal art world style change, whereasconceptualist tendencies elsewhere were alwaysbroader, more social and political, and becamemore so as time went on, eventually eclipsingEuro-American tendencies. Works by Camnitzer,such as his Uruguayan Torture Series (1983Ð4),give some substance to this view.28 While ingeneral I support this openness, especially as wecome closer to the present, we must also bewatchful that it does not lapse into a kind ofreverse reductivism, one that downplays theinternal complexities of Euro-Americanconceptualism and fails to see its progressivetransformations, as suggested by mypropositions.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe ÒGlobal ConceptualismÓ curators did

espouse a critical geopolitics, noting that thechanges within conceptualism occurred mostsignificantly on local levels: Òthe reading ofÔglobalismÕ that informs this project is a highlydifferentiated one, in which localities are linkedin crucial ways but not subsumed into ahomogenized set of circumstances andresponses to them. We mean to denote amulticentered map with various points of originin which local events are crucial determinants.Ó29

A number of interesting alternative terms appearin the essays, including ÒNon-object art,Ó applied

to HŽlio OiticicaÕs parangolŽs by Brazilian criticFerreira Gullar in 1959, and ÒPost-Object Art,Ó

used by aesthetician and sculptor Donald Brookin Sydney in 1968Ð9. Curators from all over theworld were invited to mount mini-exhibitions ofart that would meet this understanding ofconceptualism. Margarita Tupitsyn argued that inRussia two tendencies Ð KabakovianÒstylelessnessÓ and Sots Art (Soviet kitsch intohigh art) Ð combined to generate a word-imageinterplay that was uniquely inflected by its

peculiarly Soviet context.30

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn some of these situations, it may be thatÒconceptualismÓ works as a substitute for what Ibelieve the artists involved were Ð and remain Ðprimarily concerned about: as Reiko Tomiidemonstrates in the case of Japan, they soughtrecognition of their contemporaneity with theEuro-American artists, and even of theirprecedence in some cases.31 Given thatConceptual art was the most radical, avant-garde, innovative, and consequential-seemingart of the time and has retained much of that

aura since, they wanted to expand its definitionto include themselves. On the most obvious levelof simple fairness, they want to be seen to havebeen contemporary. This, I suggest, is actuallymore important to many of those involved thanwhether or not their art was, or may now be seento be, conceptual.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFrom the perspective of the broad historicalaccount that I am developing in my work at themoment, I see these artists as wishing to beacknowledged as equally important innovatorswithin the worldwide shift from late modern tocontemporary art.32 In this sense, they are rightto seek such acknowledgment. However, like allclaims for consequence, it comes withresponsibilities.

ContemporaneityMel Ramsden described Conceptual art as ÒlikeModernismÕs nervous breakdown.Ó33 A moreparochial way of putting it was ÒClementGreenbergÕs nightmareÓ (although that hadalready happened, when Frank Stella showed hisblack paintings in 1959, and MoMA exhibitedthem soon after). Michael FriedÕs nightmare,

then. From my perspective, these intensedisputations are all indicative of the moment inwhich late modern art became contemporary,that is, it was obliged to change fundamentallyas part of the general transformation ofmodernity into our current condition, in whichthe contemporaneity of difference, not ourdeclining modernity or passŽ postmodernity, isdefinitive of experience.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊClearly, there is a spirit of openhandednessin post-conceptual art uses of the termÒConceptualism.Ó We can now endow it with a

capital letter because it has grown in scale fromits initial designation of an avant-garde grouping,

   e  -    f    l   u   x    j   o   u   r   n   a    l    #    2    9

  Ñ    n   o   v   e   m    b   e   r    2    0    1    1    T   e   r   r   y    S   m    i   t    h

    O   n   e   a   n    d    T    h   r   e   e    I    d   e

   a   s   :    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    i   s   m     B

   e    f   o   r   e ,

    D   u   r    i   n   g ,   a   n    d    A

    f    t   e   r    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    A   r    t

    1    4    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 15: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 15/17

or various groups in various places, and hasevolved in two further phases. It becamesomething like a movement, on par with andevolving at the same time as Minimalism. Thusthe sense it has in a book such as Tony GodfreyÕsConceptual Art.34 Beyond that, it has in recentyears spread to become a tendency, a resonancewithin art practice that is nearly ubiquitous. Thusthe widespread use of terms such as

ÒpostconceptualÓ as a prefix to painting such asthat of Gerhard Richter and photography such asthat of Andreas Gursky. And the appeal forinclusiveness cited earlier, as well as the nearlyuniversal use of ÒconceptualÓ for any art basedon any kind of idea (as distinct from it issuingfrom instinct, taste, or the materials).ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBut inclusiveness, however desirable, doesnot mean that everyone was, and is, making thesame kind of art, nor that they did so, or aredoing so now, with the same degree ofconsequence. If we want to address critically the

contemporary ubiquity of the idea that ÒAfterConceptual art, all art is conceptualÓ (of courseechoing Kosuth on Duchamp in 1969, but in abland, generalizing fashion), we could do worsethan contrast a piece by Kosuth, One and Five(Clock) (1965) (in the Tate collection, London),with a celebrated work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres,ÒUntitledÓ (Perfect Lovers) (1987Ð90). We can seein retrospect that Kosuth is searching for his ÒArtas IdeaÓ format; he had not quite settled on theabsolute tautology that drives it in the classicthree-part presentations with which we arefamiliar. Instead, he lines up a photograph, anobject, and a set of definitions that display theconceptual architecture of clock-time, arraying itacross its pictorial, mechanical, and linguisticaspects. One thing after another, Judd-like, in arow, minimally. Five ways of shaping time aredisplayed. The printed definition of ÒtimeÓ isfront and center, and is flanked on one side by anactual clock ticking time along and away, and bya photograph that will forever freeze the timeshown on the clock it recorded but which will,being printed on paper, itself fade. On the otherside are printed definitions of ÒmechanizationÓ

and of Òobject,Ó concepts that elaborate thecontexts of both the clock and the camera. Theidea world of clock-time is being probed, itsrelevant concepts being assembled almostspatially. This is conceptualism just before itbecomes Conceptual art, the quest before therigor sets in.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIf, in regard to Pop art and Euro-Americanconceptualism, we are, as Boris Groys hasremarked, looking at art that presumes a societybuilt on freedom of choice (however apparent,spectacularized, and ultimately consumerist it

may be), for the Moscow RomanticConceptualists the very idea of having a choice

was but a dream (yet impossibility is preciselywhat occasions dreams). This, too, but verydifferently, is the point of ÒUntitledÓ (PerfectLovers). The only ÒchoiceÓ for lovers in a time ofAIDS was about the manner in which they died Ðincluding whether they died together, ascomrades of a dying time.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊConsequence counts differently at differenttimes, in different places. This, above all, is what

we need to keep in mind when we puzzle overwhat was at stake in art when it was made, andwhat we need to look for in art that is being madenow.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×These remarks combine elements from three recent lectures.The first was delivered on November 27, 2010, at theconference organized by Barbara Fischer, director of theJustina M. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto, inassociation with the exhibition ÒTraffic: Conceptualism inCanada,Ó shown at the University of Toronto Galleries duringthe preceding months. The second, dedicated to the memoryof Charles Harrison, was delivered at the Courtauld Instituteof Art, University of London, on March 8, 2011, as part of aseries on Global Conceptualism organized by Sarah Wilson

and Boris Groys. The third was presented on April 14, 2011, aspart of a conference titled ÒRevisiting Conceptual Art: TheRussian Case in an International Context,Ó convened by BorisGroys and organized by the Stella Art Foundation, Moscow. Iwould like to thank all those concerned.

   e  -    f    l   u   x    j   o   u   r   n   a    l    #    2    9

  Ñ    n   o   v   e   m    b   e   r    2    0    1    1    T   e   r   r   y    S   m    i   t    h

    O   n   e   a   n    d    T    h   r   e   e    I    d   e

   a   s   :    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    i   s   m     B

   e    f   o   r   e ,

    D   u   r    i   n   g ,   a   n    d    A

    f    t   e   r    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    A   r    t

    1    5    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 16: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 16/17

Terry Smith is Andrew W. Mellon Professor ofContemporary Art History and Theory in theDepartment of the History of Art and Architecture atthe University of Pittsburgh, and Distinguished VisitingProfessor, National Institute for Experimental Arts,College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales,Sydney. In 2010 he received the Franklin JewettMather Award for Art Criticism conferred by theCollege Art Association (USA) and the Australia CouncilVisual Arts Laureate Award (Commonwealth ofAustralia). He was a member of the Art & Language

group (New York) and a founder of Union MediaServices (Sydney). He is the author of a number ofbooks, notably Making the Modern: Industry, Art andDesign in America (University of Chicago Press, 1993;inaugural winner Georgia OÕKeeffe Museum Prize,2009), Transformations in Australian Art, volume 1, TheNineteenth Century: Landscape, Colony and Nation,volume 2, The Twentieth Century: Modernism and

 Aboriginality (Craftsman House, Sydney, 2002), The Architecture of Aftermath (University of Chicago Press,2006), What is Contemporary Art? (University ofChicago Press, 2009), and Contemporary Art: WorldCurrents (Laurence King and Pearson/Prentice Hall,2011).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1Cited on a file card from thecatalogue/exhibition by GaryCoward with Arthur Bardo andBill Vazan, Ò45¡30'N-73¡36'W +InventoryÊ,Ó Williams Art Gallery,Montreal, 1971.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2Simon Blackburn, ed., TheOxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1996.) Oxford Reference Online.Oxford University Press, posted

April 8, 2008.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3Terry Smith, ÒPeripheries inMotion: Conceptualism andConceptual Art in Australia andNew Zealand,Ó in Luis Camnitzer,Jane Farver, and Rachel Weiss,eds., Global Conceptualism:Points of Origin, 1950sÐ1980s(New York: Queens Museum ofArt, 1999), 87Ð95.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4Ian Burn, ÒConceptual Art asArt,Ó Art and Australia(September 1970): 167Ð70.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5

During the 1990s, Burn becameacutely aware of what he saw asthe growing disjunction betweenthe histories of art written by arthistorians and what he saw asthe historical work, on both artand history, being undertaken incertain works of art: ÒWhile anyimage or object can be fittedinto many historical discourses,it cannot be at the expense ofthe historical discourse withinthe image itself.Ó (Ian Burn, ÒIsArt History Any Use to Artists?,Óin Ian Burn, Dialogue: Writings in

 Art History (Sydney: Allen &Unwin, 1991), 6.) To Burn, artistscreated that discourse less aspicturing of it Ê(as if it were a

parade occurring at arepresentable distance), more inthe way they composed theirworks, in the disposition ofelements internal to each work.Sidney Nolan and Fernand LŽgerwere prominent examples: inone of his essays, Burn showedthat Nolan used somecompositional ideas of LŽgerÕsnot to create a local modernism,nor to modernize his own art byimitation, but to negotiate areconception of what landscapemight mean in Australian art andhistory. ÒSidney Nolan:Landscape and Modern Life,Ó inBurn, Dialogue, 67Ð85.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6Conversation, New York, March27, 2011.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7An observation made by BorisGroys in a seminar at theCourtauld Institute, University ofLondon, March 9, 2011.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8ÒBefore the Warhol canvases weare trapped in ghastlyembarrassment. This sense ofarbitrary coloring, the nearlyobliterated image and thepersistently intrusive feeling.Somewhere in the image there is

a proposition. It is unclear.ÓDavid Antin, ÒWarhol: The Silver

Tenement,Ó Art News (Summer1966): 58. Cited by LeoSteinberg, see Harrison & WoodÊ,953.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9I first published thesepropositions, under the headingÒA Theory of ConceptualismÓ inÒConceptual Art in Transit,Óchapter 6 of Transformations in

 Australian Art, volume 2, TheTwentieth Century Ð Modernismand Aboriginality (Sydney:

Craftsman House, 2002), 127.They may be found in a nascentform, but applied to the Art &Language group only, in myessay ÒArt and Art & Language,Ó

 Artforum XII, no. 6 (February1974): 49Ð52.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10ÒConcept ArtÓ is first of all an artof which the material isconcepts, as the material of e.g.music is sound. Since conceptsare closely bound up withlanguage, concept art is the kindof art of which the material islanguage.Ó Henry Flynt,ÒConcept Art,Ó 1961, in La MonteYoung ed., An Anthology (New

York: George Maciunas andJackson MacLow, 1962).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11Morris is just one among manyartists whose breakthroughwork during the 1960s and1970s has led to a practice thatis at once innovative, reactive tothe innovations of youngerartists, and retrospective withrespect to itself and theinnovations of contemporariespast and present. This is a(remodernist) resonance withincontemporary art that calls forcareful analysis and cautioussynopsis.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12ÒFor the artistÉ is concernedonly with the way (1) in which artis capable of conceptual growthand (2) how his propositions arelogically capable of followingthat growth.Ó Joseph Kosuth,ÒArt After Philosophy,Ó StudioInternational 178, nos. 915Ð17(1969); in Joseph Kosuth, Art

 After Philosophy and After:Collected Writings, 1966Ð1990(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,1991), 20. It is interesting thathis Êillustrations of suchpropositions include this: ÒIfPollock is important it isbecause he painted on loose

canvas horizontally to the floor,Ónot because he hung them onthe wall subsequently, and evenless due to his notions of Òself-expression.Ó Ibid., 21. Universityof Pittsburgh graduate studentRobert Bailey remarks thatKosuthÕs statement could alsobe taken to mean that afterDuchamp drew attention to theconceptual core ofconsequential art, all art ofconsequence made at any timeanywhere is ipso factoconceptual. This is an idea thatunleashes a quest ofreinterpretation of potentiallyimmense proportions.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13Sol LeWitt, ÒParagraphs on

   e  -    f    l   u   x    j   o   u   r   n   a    l    #    2    9

  Ñ    n   o   v   e   m    b   e   r    2    0    1    1    T   e   r   r   y    S   m    i   t    h

    O   n   e   a   n    d    T    h   r   e   e    I    d   e

   a   s   :    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    i   s   m     B

   e    f   o   r   e ,

    D   u   r    i   n   g ,   a   n    d    A

    f    t   e   r    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    A   r    t

    1    6    /    1    7

11.10.11 / 15:43:51 EST

Page 17: Article 267

8/3/2019 Article 267

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/article-267 17/17

Conceptual Art,Ó Artforum V, no.10 (Summer 1967): 79Ð83.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14Sol LeWitt, ÒSentences onConceptual Art,Ó Art-Language 1,no. 1 (May 1969): 11Ð3. Fiveversions in manuscript arereproduced in Conceptual Art inthe Netherlands and Belgium1965Ð1975, ed. Suzanne HŽman,Jurie Poot, and HripsimŽ Visser(Rotterdam: NAi Publishers forthe Stedelijk Museum

Amsterdam), 48Ð83.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15Among Canadian artists workingin New York at the time, MichaelSnowÕs Authorization (1969) getsclose to this, but the mirrormakes it not tautological: it is atleast partly about not being ableto see oneÕs whole reflection,and is thus partly consonantwith WarholÕs filmmaking. Norshould we forget the obviousfact that it is also a realmetaphor for the process ofbeing ÒauthorizedÓ Ð recordedby authority, as in having apassport photograph taken.SnowÕs work Red to the Fifth is

tautological: it is ademonstration piece that leavesnothing dangling Ð rare inSnowÕs art, to my knowledge.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ16A similar set of instructions withslightly different wording is citedin Lucy Lippard, Six Years: Thedematerialization of the artobject from 1966 to 1972 (NewYork: Praeger, 1973), 227.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ17See Terry Smith, ÒArt and Art &Language,Ó Artforum XII, no. 6(February 1974): 49Ð52.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ18

See Sandy Kirby, ed., Ian Burn, Art: Critical, Political (Nepean,Australia: University of WesternSydney, 1996).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ19See Bruce Barber, ed., CondŽand Beveridge: Class Works(Halifax, Nova Scotia: The Pressof the Nova Scotia College of Artand Design, 2008).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ20Boris Groys, ÒMoscow RomanticConceptualism,Ó A-YA, no. 1(1979): 1.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ21

Boris Groys, History BecomesForm: Moscow Conceptualism(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,2010), 35.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ22 A-YA, no. 1 (1979): 1.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ23Matthew Jesse Jackson, TheExperimental Group: IlyaKabakov, MoscowConceptualism, Soviet Avant-Gardes (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 2010), 110.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ24Alla Rosenfeld, MoscowConceptualism in Context

(Munich: Prestel for theZimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers

University, 2011).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ25Marek Bartelik, ÒThe BannerWithout a Slogan: Definitionsand Sources of MoscowConceptualism,Ó in Rosenfeld,Moscow Conceptualism inContext, 16.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ26Camnitzer, Farver, and Weiss,Global Conceptualism, vii.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ27Camnitzer, Farver, and Weiss,Global Conceptualism, viii.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ28The Museo del Barrio show couldhave done better in this regard,but the catalogue iscomprehensive. See Hans-Michael Herzog and KatrinSteffen, Luis Camnitzer (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje-Cantz for Daros Museum, Zurich,2010).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ29Camnitzer, Farver, and Weiss,Global Conceptualism, vii.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ30Margarita Tupitsyn, ÒAbout EarlySoviet Conceptualism,Ó inCamnitzer, Farver, and Weiss,Global Conceptualism, 98Ð107.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ31Reiko Tomii, ÒHistoricizingÔContemporary ArtÕ: SomeDiscursive Practices in GendaiBijutsu in Japan,Ó positions 12:3Ê(2004): 611Ð41.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ32Cited in Charles Harrison,Conceptual Art and Painting:Further Essays on Art &Language (Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press, 2001), 27.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ33See Terry Smith, Contemporary 

 Art: World Currents (London:Laurence King; Upper SaddleRiver, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall,2011).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ34Tony Godfrey, Conceptual Art(London: Phaidon, 1998). Themost comprehensivecompendium, unmatched in itscoverage of Central and EasternEuropean work in particular butglobal in its reach, is MiskoSuvakovic, KonceptualnaUmetnost (Novi Sad, Serbia:

Muzej Savremene UmetnostiVojvodine, 2007).

   e  -    f    l   u   x    j   o   u   r   n   a    l    #    2    9

  Ñ    n   o   v   e   m    b   e   r    2    0    1    1    T   e   r   r   y    S   m    i   t    h

    O   n   e   a   n    d    T    h   r   e   e    I    d   e

   a   s   :    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    i   s   m     B

   e    f   o   r   e ,

    D   u   r    i   n   g ,   a   n    d    A

    f    t   e   r    C   o   n   c   e   p    t   u   a    l    A   r    t

    1    7    /    1    7


Recommended