Page 26 - Studio International - November 1972

interesting'. 17 If this issue is pushed even proposition. But if it is asked how through a art works. But by definition this procedure can
further, towards the apparent relation of formal (rational) language are levels of felt extend neither the meaning of art, nor what is
value to an 'ultimate' condition of 'felt consciousness to be revealed, or how are felt presented. Kosuth may be drawing attention to
insight', then it might be directly claimed that states to be referred to, then the analogy conditions in art that tell us nothing significant
art within this context commands conviction collapses. about art as such, or that may simply be
to either a greater or lesser degree. Suppose it is possible to present a definition defined as being irrelevant to art. In any event,
of art in analytic terms. How is this definition this strategy has little to do with Kosuth's
3 to be presented or worked out as a tautology ? On analytic claims for art. Nor, it might be added,
One of the most active metaphors for defining the most elementary level, within the context of does the philosophical categorizing of abstract
consciousness in art has become that of our feelings or perceptions, if A= B there is no terms through degrees of generality provide any
abstraction. Modernist criticism has described reason why A should premise B, or be subject profound insight into the problems of
the procedure of 'formal reduction' as the very to any criterion of logical contradiction outside abstraction in relation to thought, or for that
means by which art has most convincingly of the confirmation of phenomenal experience. matter, the nature of abstraction in art.22
defined its status in relation to other disciplines. Also, if it is further argued that art's status is not One only too apparent reason for this kind of
By transforming the question What is Art ? to to 'assert' but to 'reveal', then there is no reason breakdown in dealing with abstraction in art is
the question: what is the exclusive experience why the use of language as an expedient should its disassociation from felt consciousness. To
provided by a form of Art ? it has on this level not remain a-logical. To quote A. J. Ayer: quote Morton Feldman, 'The abstract (in art) is
clarified the progress of fine art, through various `The view that the Metaphysician is to be not involved with ideas. It is an inner process
stages of figuration, towards the direct reckoned among the poets, appears to rest on the that continually appears and becomes familiar
presentation of 'sense data'. But more assumption that both talk nonsense. But this like another consciousness. The most difficult
significantly, the formal 'procedures' of assumption is false. In the vast majority of cases thing in art is to keep intact this consciousness of
abstraction have also proved an effective method the sentences that are produced by poets do the abstract . . . . the abstract in the sense I use
for disclosing or encountering new dimensions have literal meaning. The difference between the term has appeared in art all through the
of felt consciousness. In fact, as I understand its the man who uses language scientifically and the history of art — an emotion the philosophers
development, it is in this sense that Modernist man who uses it emotively is not that one uses have failed to categorize r 23
Art may well claim to have produced by far the sentences incapable of arousing emotion, and the On one side this misunderstanding of the
most original art. other sentences which have no sense, but that nature of abstraction in art has led to the various
From this vantage point, the recent move by one is primarily concerned with the expression assertions that abstract art is too removed from
Frank Stella (influenced by Jasper Johns), of true propositions, the other with the the emotional reality of our everyday lives, or
then followed by Don Judd, towards the direct creation of a work of art .:. . . . If the artist writes even that illusion as a representational form
use of facts as abstract entities in order to nonsense it is because he considers it the most distorts our perception of things. But the
liberate their art from associative responses, may suitable for bringing about the effect for which alternative of setting up an 'actual (or literal)
be regarded as having effected a significant shift his writing is designed'.21 state of affairs', for the purpose of eliciting an
in our understanding of abstract form in It might, however, be argued that this is to emotional response, or for illustrating a mental
relation to 'felt consciousness'. confuse a method with its purpose (if this is condition, is for this very reason inadequate.
Within this praxis, Joseph Kosuth, apparently possible in dealing with truth relations), but Happenings, actions, situations, etc., that present
pushing to an even further extreme of even more open to criticism is Kosuth's `literal metaphors' for 'life' may intensify our
Abstraction,18 together with the possibility of employment of concepts within the context of responses to everyday existence, or they may
using precepts (or ideas) to construct an art. In Kosuth's activity, the ideas of objects extend self-awareness through reflexive
intelligible language, has argued for an enquiry first as explicit verbal definitions (particulars, consciousness, but it is here that they stop short.
into art based purely on a conceptual level and then generalizations), then as conceptual Their form can provide no further insight into
in line with philosophy. Art, in other words, is categories implied by art language (synopsis our internal (abstract) sense of being, nor for the
to become solely a matter of thinking about art, from Roget's Thesaurus), then as structural same reason can they take us any further outside
or thinking about thinking about art. Further, systems referring to thought, are presented of ourselves. However they may shift or
Kosuth has maintained that an artwork is only within the art context as 'investigations'. re-articulate our immediate experience of life,
meaningful if it is analogous to an analytic According to Kosuth, the sorting out of this the fact remains that they can neither transcend
proposition19 (that is outside of the information is not the art, nor is its presentation or get around 'overt behaviour' or 'material
indeterminate realm of empirical experience), as such, which is 'neutral'. How, then, does consciousness' as such. (Obviously this doesn't
which in turn implies not only an intelligible, Kosuth's work function within an art context apply to any particular choice of subject matter
but also a rational use of language; 'Fundamental (or as art) ? Presumably as a context for drawing (or facts), but only to a particular treatment of
to this idea of art is the understanding of the attention to a certain order of thought in art, them.) The criticism, in short, is that as a form
linguistic nature of all art propositions, be they which in circular fashion directs attention in of revelation these modalities remain banal.
past or present and regardless of the elements in turn to the nature of art as 'idea as idea' (much On the other side, when art is pursued as a
their construction'.20 However, it is precisely in like Duchamp's readymades). But it is exactly purely formal (abstract) concern, then
this form that abstract thought in art is most this 'demonstrative' use of the art context that is `cognition' in art inevitably slips into the
open to question — if not to outright derision. dubious. (I don't see how else an investigation universal realm of analogy, where its method or
The analogy between art (or any contribution can function in this context as a strictly purpose can easily be confused with that of any
to art), and an 'analytic proposition', is useful, if analytic procedure.) other discipline. For example, what does it add
art as an enterprise is seen not only as a continual By presenting 'verbal' definitions within the to our notion of abstraction in art to quote the
effort to clarify the painful formal contradictions art context, for example, Kosuth may be following as an 'indication' that in this respect
within itself (ie figuration and theatre, drawing attention to synonymous pictorial art is still 'ludicrously primitive'.24
abstraction and identity, experience and representations, or indicating that words as `I see no a-priori reason why even such an
cognition, etc.) but also as an effort to recover or generalities are more abstract than the important concept as that of a physical object
expose new levels of felt consciousness within presentation of sense precepts. Or, in presenting should not be regarded as indispensable. Might
ourselves. Similarly the internal coherence of a related art concepts, he may be drawing not substantially the same facts be expressed in a
type of consciousness (its formal consistency) attention to the semantic aspect of language in language reflecting a universe of discourse in
may be thought of as a kind of a-priori `art', or the use of words in the understanding of which the basic particulars were momentary
174