Page 77 - Studio International - December 1973

ART THEORY& PRACTICE
be sparsely populated, being that much more 3 A custodial role, or keeper of 'art', is constantly View', Art-Language, 1/2, Febuary, 1970.
prone to a tradition of criticism, but student implicit in Kosuth's notion of art activity: the 9 See the Art-Language section in 'The New Art',
status is wide open to self election and good argument is really as to whom this should be. Arts Council, 1972, for an account of Mapping and
Filing and the Index.
Fora survey of the origins of Conceptual Art see
intention. Jack Burnham, 'Alice's Head', Art Forum, February, 9 John Stezaker, a 9 9 .. and six predicable concepts,
The changes inaugurated by conceptual 1970, and Joseph Kosuth, 'Art After Philosophy', 1972.
parts II and III, Studio International, 9 Lawrence Weiner, Avalanche, Spring, 1972.
artists were major, an unprecedented shift in the November, December, 1969. 31 Theoretical art seems to be grounded on the
direction of art amounting in many cases to a 5 Victor Burgin, 'Situational Aesthetics', Studio recognition of a crisis in art and one which has been in
contradiction in its basic premises. It was this International, October, 1969. operation for some time; in the course of this no one
6 Joseph Kosuth, 'Art after philosophy: part 3', has looked objectively at the implications of the new
which put its practitioners into the Studio International, December, 1969, page 212. body of practice although Art-Language writers
fundamentally different position of studentship See Charles Harrison, 'A Very Abstract Context', have made gestures towards the need for a termination
because they were acting in a situation without Studio International, November, 1970, p. 169-7. or a governing hierarchy. In broad terms we have
8 Information, The Museum of Modem Art, New probably reached 'the moment of the theory of
precedents and one in which there was no York, 1970, pages 68-69. theoretical practice, that is, the moment in which a
fundamental assurance that the new activity 9 See Kosuth's statement in Information, Museum of "theory" feels the need for the theory of its own
amounted to art, except by virtue of their own Modem Art, New York, 1970, page 69, and David practice 9 ..' L. Althusser, 'On the Materialist
Lamelas's Publication, London, 1970. Dialectic', printed in 'For Marx', London, 1969,
assertion and their own quest for precedents. 1° See Victor Burgin writing in Publication, ed. p. 174.
Acting under quite new terms of reference the David Lamelas, published by Nigel Greenwood Inc 9 A contribution to a debate by Ad Reinhardt quoted
new art was initially very concerned to define Ltd, 1970, page in Modern Artists in America, ed. R. Motherwell and
Ad Reinhardt, New York, 195r, p. 15.
11 Charles Harrison, 'A Very Abstract Context',
its position vis-a-vis the established arts, Studio International, November, 1970, pages 196-197. " L. Alloway, 'Nine Abstract Artists', London, 1954.
generally in terms of a total usurpation with the 12 Illustrated in J. Russell and S. Gablik, Pop Art 38 There is some evidence in addition to Alloway's
established arts, particularly painting, no longer Redefined, London, 1969. analyses in 'Nine Abstract Artists' that artists'
9 J. Russell and S. Gablik, Pop Art Redefined, statements were the Achilles Heel of art: see, for
countenanceable. Until 1969 or 1970 there is a London, 1969, page 92. instance, Jacques Barzun's denunciations of the
strong element of demonstration of the very 9 See the introduction by Lawrence Alloway to the statements found in the catalogue of 12 Americans,
fourth Guggenheim International Exhibition and MOMA, New York, 1956.
basic premises of the new activity. Its support
the extended criticism of this viewpoint in " M. Fried, 'The Confounding of a Confusion', in
writings, in the articles of Victor Burgin, for Michael Fried's review, Art International, VIII/3, Arts Yearbook, 7, (New York: The Art World) 1964,
instance, and in the criticism of Charles April 25,1964, page 57. page 37.
15 See, for instance, the extreme diversity of group 40 C. Greenberg, 'The "Crisis" of Abstract Art', in
Harrison are greatly involved in defining its
designation (The New Realists, Neo-Dada, Arts Yearbook, 7, (New York: The Art World),
historical position as embodying a rejection of Le Nouveau Realisme, Pop Art, The New page 92.
painting and furthermore a rejection of the Vulgarians, Common Object Painting, Know-nothing 9 Joseph Kosuth, 'Introductory Note by the
genre) signalled by Barbara Rose in her review American Editor', Art-Language, 1/2, Feb., 1970.
commodity concept of art particularly strongly
`Dada Then and Now', Art International,VII/I 9 42 From Recent Abstract Paintings by Ad Reinhardt,
manifest in painting. In the demonstrating that 1963, pages 22-28. Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, October 18-
there were possible alternatives to the physical 9 C. Greenberg, 'Recentness of Sculpture', from the November 6, 1948, page 2.
object notion of art it was not, at the same time, exhibition catalogue American Sculpture of the 9 But, unfortunately, only within the context of the
body of problems of identity and definition
Sixties, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967.
demonstrated conclusively that the objects were 9 Donald Judd, 'Complaints Part I', Studio bequeathed to modern art by Duchamp.
indisputably part of an art category; there is, for International, April, 1969, page 182. 9 Ad Reinhardt, 'Twelve Rules for a New Academy',
9 Barbara Reise, 'Untitled 1969' : a footnote on art quoted in The New Art, ed. G. Battcock, 1966, p. zoo.
instance, a notable hesitancy on the part of
and minimal-stylehood, Studio International, 45 See Michael Fried, 'Jackson Pollock', Art Forum,
Victor Burgin in his writing on Situational April, 1969, page 166. IV/I, September, 1965, pages 14-17,
Aesthetics to give a conclusive classification to 19 This is quoted by Joseph Kosuth in 'Art after 9 Cf. the very similar argument of Marcelin
the things made within art activity. Joseph Philosophy', Studio International, October, 1969. Pleynet in which he compares this process of
problem solving and exhaustion (`L'aboutissement')
See Art & Language, ed. P. Maenz, page 80.
Ko3uth's art activity was at the same time The extraction and isolation of this phrase from to the sustained involvement of the problematic.
broadly experimental, more to do with Judd's writing tends to suggest that he advocated a M. Pleynet, Peinture et `Realize', in L'enseignement de
mindless openness of minimum qualifications where, la peinture, Paris, 1971, page 183.
demonstrations of differing conditions of being,
in fact, he holds a quite different view: talking of art 47 A statement by Victor Burgin in The New Art,
more to do with the demonstration of alternative he asserts: 'one aspect .. . is that art is good, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1972, page 76.
states of objectness than with the making of an middling and bad'. See 'The Artist and Politics:
A Symposium', Art Forum, September, 1970,
indisputably art object. In this sense the total
page 37.
novelty of the situation needed some time to be 2 John Stezaker, 'Three Paradoxes and a DE LEGIBUS
assimilated but once this had happened and the Resolution', Studio International, May, 1972, P. 214.
Discussed at length in Joseph Kosuth, 'Art after
initial discovery of an alternative to the Philosophy', Studio International, October, 1969. See PHILOSOPHICUS
physical object paradigm the major surviving Art & Language, ed. P. Maenz, page 82.
problem became one of accrediting this with an 9 Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, 'Some post-war The conceptual artists ask questions about the
American work and Art-Language: ideological
art status, something which was by no means responsiveness', Studio International, April, 1972, identity of art, the role of theory in relation to
obvious at the outset. Rauschenberg, accredited page 166. art and have a radical perspective that theory
by Kosuth with some of the earliest indications '3 Ibid., page 165. itself can be art. As part of this discussion
of Conceptualism, did not, for instance, focus his 9 Joseph Kosuth, 'Art after Philosophy', Studio certain assumptions are made about what
International, October, 1969.
entire work around such things as the Iris 9 A consequence of the breakdown of the primacy of philosophy can legislate for art. Some truths
Clert telegram and Jasper Johns, again referred painting as the means by which the history of art gleaned from philosophy, functioning within
to by Kosuth in the context of innovators, unfolds seems to have been a fairly general attempt 'Post-Duchampian art,1 form the logical
to return to a stable certainty of art out of a frenetic
produced an exegetical account of painting, but multiplicity of new arts. lynch-pin of this 'conceptual art'. I believe the
by means of objects which were as seductively 9 John Stezaker, 'Priorities', Frameworks, June, philosophy to be misplaced and the ideas to be
1973, page 4.
art objects as anything in the history of art. 9 Ibid., page 5. misconceived. But before giving the reasons for
Conceptualism faced the problem in its totality 9 Ibid., page 4. this criticism, a few fine, if not pedantic,
without any of the aids or partial commitments 9 John Stezaker, Introduction to Categories, distinctions must be drawn.
Gallery House, London, 1972, Section 5.
of its predecessors. 0 9 The common tendency to see Duchamp as the Whatever the intentions of this group (Art &
IAN JEFFERY originator of the central problematic in modem art is Language) are, they are not philosophical.
open to dispute based as it is on Duchamp's Having swallowed wholesale the works of such
1 See, for instance, Clyfford Still in a letter quoted in suppression of the ramified problems of a variety of art
15 Americans, ed. Dorothy C. Miller, Museum of activities in favour of the single problem of art monsters of abstraction as Whitehead, Russell,
Modern Art, New York, 1952, pages 21-22. identity. Frege and Quine, they remain, despite their
Joseph Kosuth, 'Art After Philosophy', Studio 9 Terry Atkinson, 'From an Art & Language Point of
International, October, 1969. intellectual indigestion, artists. The approach
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