d ObJectiOn" .

known IIH" r xistcnc« of the

810 IllstltutlfHl~ an -.1 w I '111 tll:t~ l1~lr 'tll'll ion u..,inf.?, t he 'ipacc anW\(}rk.

, hiS S10 , .t1~llC hi C .. t th

IJ · J'ust hcinp. m t 'h'l1t"S in an ~U . f ' 11f'ohtrnl as people hecOlne h1 t

, .. ' . these t 1 l' 1 .s~ () .l ,.. ore

I' 11rt'sCllt111~ '. will he c... . t 'J·t.~ted person reacts In a perl-,

m · hinl- thiS n urt uu til l " I (Hlal

It.llo~Uc, It,. A\s with any·l ", 'rritHltiol1 ()hVlously, I can't COntr 1

l '. • d ttl t h 1!>-t a r I.' " '( it n d 1 n 1.1,., ()

acrhnlJtc- i., wn c:xpcrtc.:1U

I on hiS 0

wa\ ha~L'( , _-'?

1 yoU usc. Thcrc i

that, ki I of cnerg~ (. o : ,T -tic waves. _. icre IS a piece in th.

. . 1 ,,,,h.lt lnt " .1 crron1(lgnt. ,~. ." c

C},: 1'.x.H,:t ~ 'I (' l'oergv IS C C . . lio statton tor a prescnbed length

'. l)ne kine 0 ~'.' c of a r,\(.. h .

BARR'. ,'. uses rhe l"i.lrrt~r Wtt,V .. T inforolat100, but rat e~ as an object.

sho~\' \\ hl(h. '1 nleans of transollttlOfg. citizens band transmitter to bridge

f t Ole not as t .: ~ wave 0 a I . ,

o 1 , '" llses the can rcr d I uxcnlbourg severa times dunng the

~\n()thcr plcce York an oJ bl

' " points in New .: . f the sun and favora e atmospheric

t \-\ 0 Ulst,lnt . ' f the posItion 0 . .

f h ~ show. Because 0 h of the show -- this piece could be

r II not c., " ',' the 010 n t . ' , .

d't'c)ns dunng J,lnll~ll) .cc. t '()ndlt10nS other locations wou .. ld have

con 1 1 • ',~ d .r d I fl eren c. ~ , , . .

, le At another nrnc, un (, ' er \\lave pieces which have Just enough

nl,ll, r'., . > '0 smaller carne .' ih

t be used, I here are tw . They are very dtfferent In c aracter, one

o ibi . n space,

power to fill the cxht It,10 'M b t both \\ ill occupy the same space at the

. AM the other beIng f , U ,

being ~1. , C f h materIal.

h '. he nature 0 t e

same time' sue IS ~ C filled with ultrasonic sound. I've also used

~Iso in the sho~v ~11! be ~~~~;nare many other possibilities which I intend

mIcrowaves and radiation. h lot of things we don't yet know about

I d 1'01 sure t ere are a w'

to cxp ore .an . d us and though we don't see or feel them,

which exist In the space aroun , ,

we somehow know the) are out there.

10 Joseph Kosuth (b. 1945) 'Art after Philosophy'

With the publication of this essay Kosuth successfully claimed a pos!tion as spokesm~ for the avant-garde idea of 'art as idea'. His extreme form of Modernist autonomy the is harnessed to a revaluation and revision of art history which posits Duc.hanR~It~ readymades - rather than the paintings of Manet or Cezanne or the moment of \.I1i_

- as the significant point of initiation of the modern. Fallowing its initial PUUNI,\,;1 however, the essay was widely understood as a form of manifesto for an • ~1 __ II" tendency within the wider Conceptual Art movement. In the summer of was i~vited t? act as American Editor of the journal Art-Language, and he as.s?clated Wlt~ Art ~ Language until 1976 (see VlIsl and 4). 'Art after Ph Originally published In three parts in Studio International, vol. 1 78, ~as,

london. O~tober. Novembe,r, December 1969, pp, 134-7. 160-1, 212-13. It

much repnnt~d, Its theoretical argument is restricted to the first part

present text IS taken. •

;':'h,e fuct }th~t it has rcc.'cnt.l) bC(,0I11C fashionable for phy i i )C syrnpat lettr to\\'ll'ds rcli r'

i th ~ . I' ·1' '. glon . , . marks the physicists' 0 n 1

11 e va 1( It, of theIr h't1 itl " hi , .

, nri ·r·· . - l tc SCS, \V 11Ch IS .1 rca ction on th i

tl " I-f(~ 1 glOUS dognlut lSt11 of ni net cen l h '. ' ., . .

of t he crisis 1 broug h '1' ~I I' -ccnt 111 ~ SCt .nnsts, nd

\\ lie 1 p lyS1CS has Just passed.' A. J.

The Function of Art

'Th . , f aintillg i

e main qualifications to the lesser position 0 P

an are certainly not always formal ones.' - Donald Judd (1 'Half or more of the best new work in the last few es

painting nor sculpture.' - Donald Judd (1965). ald J dd

~ E k d n't ' - Don U

very thing sculpture has, my war oesnr. , _ Sol Le

'1 he idea becomes a machine that makes the art.

\ IIA Objecthood and Reduct' .

IVlsm 841

, ... once one has understood the Trac ratus there will be no t '

l.·oncern oneself. any more \vith philosophy, 'which is neither ernpi ". e1m1,Ptahon t.o

I' - , flea lk .

nor (auto ogrcaj like mathernatics; o ne w ill , like ",rittgenstein· 19 e SCIence

Philosophy ,,-hich. as traditionally understood, i rooted in lnf ,18, abandon

, ' con USlon ' - J 0

LTflllson. ' '.

Traditional philosoph Y, almost bv definition has Con d

1 -I' .. , cerne itself .: h

[(aid, The near Y exc USIye focus on the said bv twe t' . h . \\ It the

til . . • hers is the sha . - n let -centurv' 1·'

l'oguistlc philo op ers IS the shared contention that the . d is •. ana ~ tical

1 HI" unsai IS unsaid bee

it is 1/IlS11J able. ege tan philo ophj made sen e in the nine L h ecause

b h' ineteenr cenrurv a d

rnu t have een soot lng to a century that was barelv ueni r . • n

d 1 H ,. . t- lng over Hume the

Enlightenment, an ant. egel s philosophy was also capabl f'.' -,

~ f 1" b -. . . - "e 0 gl\ lng cover

for a defence 0 re IglOUS eliefs, su ppl YIn (T an alternati ve to "1 . "

. .,. . • I:' , - • '" e\\ ton lan mech-

aOI~S. and fitting In \\ ith the growth of historv as a discipli ' . 11

. .. B . I ") - 1 n e, as \\ e as

accepting, Darv iruan 10 ogy. - He appeared to give an acceptable resolution to

[he conflIcr bet . en theology and SCIence, as 'veil.

The result of Hegel's i~fluence has been that a great majority of contemporary philo ophers are really little more than historians of philosophy, Librarians of (he Truth, so. to, speak. On~ be~ins to get. the im~ress~on ,that there 'is nothing more to be said. And certainly If one realizes the implications of Wittgenstein's thinking and the thinking influenced by him and after him, 'Continental' philo ophy need not seriously be considered here.'

•

The twentieth century brought in a time which could be called 'the end of

philosophy and the beginning of art'. I do not mean that, of course, strictly speaking, but rather as the 'tendency' of the situation. Certainl linguistic philosophy can be considered the heir to empiricism, but it's a philosophy in one gear." And there is certainly an 'art condition' to art preceding Duchamp, but its other functions or reasons-to-be are so pronounced that its ability to function clearh~as art limits its art condition so drastically that it's only minimallv art. -In no mechanistic sense is there a connection bet een philos-

ophy s 'ending' and art's 'beginning', but I don't find thiI nee entire!

coincidental. Though the same reasons may be responsibl fo.

the connection is made bv me. I bring this all up to aaal e subsequently its viabilit):. And I do so to enable others to __ .amah

reasoning of my - and bv extension, other artists' - art, ell

, .J , S

a clearer understanding of the term ~Conceptual art ·

842 Institutions and Objections

'The one thing to say about art is that it is one thing. Art i everything else is everything else. Art as art is nothing but art sAart .... as .. art a

.. . . rt IS llo

is not art.' - Ad Reinhardt (1963}. . nOt wha

'The meaning is the use.' - Wlttgensteln. t

'A more functional approach to the study of concepts has tend d

the method of introspection. Instead of attempting to grasp or desce'b to rep1ac

1 .' . h . n eeo e

bare, so to speak, the psycho ogrsr investIgates t e way In which the ncepts

as ingredients in beliefs and in judgements.' - Irving M. COP]. Y function

'Meaning is always a presupposition o~ fun~tio~.' - :' Segerstedt.

, ... the subject-matter of conceptual In.vesngatlons IS the meaning . f words and expressions - and not the things and states of affairs h certain a bou t which we talk, when usin g those words and expressions.' _ G. e~selves Wright. . Von

'Thinking is radically metaphoric. Linkage by analogy is its constit

. I..' . l' uent I

or principle, Its causa nexus, SInce meaning on y arises through th aw

contexts by which a sign stands for (takes the place of) an instance 0; caUsal To think of anything is to take it as of a sort (as a such and such) rd SOrt. 'as' brings in (openly or in disguise) the an~logy, the parallel, the me~: h~hat grapple or gr~und or. grasp .or dra~ by which alone t~e mi.nd takes h~ld.fIC takes no hold If there IS nothing for It to haul from, for Its thmking is the h It the attraction of likes.' - 1. A. Richards. aul)

In. this section. I will discuss t~e .separati~n between aesthetics and art; consider bnefly Formalist art (because It IS a leading proponent of the idea of aesthetics as art), and assert that art is analogous to an analytic proposition, and that it is art's existence as a tautology which enables art to remain 'aloof' from

philosophical presumptions,

It is necessary to separate, aesthetics from art because aesthetics deals with

opinions on perception of the world in general. In the past one of the two prongs of art's function was its value as decoration. So any branch of philosophy which dealt with 'beauty' and thus, taste, was inevitably duty bound to discuss art as well. Out of this 'habit' grew the notion that there was a conceptual connection between art and aesthetics, which is not true, This idea never drastically conflicted with artistic considerations before recent times, not only because the morphological characteristics of art perpetuated the continuity of this error, but as well, because the apparent other 'functions' of art (depiction of religious themes, portraiture of aristocrats, detailing of architecture, etc.) used

art to cover up art.

When objects are presented within the context of art (and until recen.rlY

objects always have been used) they are as eligible for aesthetic considera~on

b· . h .' iderati f an object

as are any 0 jects In t e world and an aesthetic consi eratrou 0 .

existing in the realm of art means that the object's existence or functioning In

an art context is irrelevant to the aesthetic judgement. ·e

Th I· f ' heti rchitectur ,

e re anon a aesthetics to art is not unlike that of aest eUCS to a , 's is

. hat hi h ' d' irs desIgn 1

In t at arc itecture as a very specific function and how goo 1 ts on

primarily related to how well it performs its function. Thus, judgemen

deals,

~l"

tOe ~

PhilOSo~ to di~, conce~~.

rem,

VIlA Obi

what it lOOk . )ecthood an

different s Iike correspond to taste, and we d RedUct, .

eXa......... I f hi can se h l\lIS",",

the aesthet' ..... p es 0 arc Itecture are praised at . e t at thr "1 843

make lCS of particular epochs. Aesthetic hi different tim oughout h'

to " eXam If) . t lnki "les d lSto

"eroselve . p es 0 arc l~tecture not related ,ng has eve' . ependin ry

t A th s (e.g. the pyramIds of Egypt). to art' at all n gOne So l on

es etIC considerations are indeed at ' Works of at as

or 'reason to be' Unless f ways extrane art in

. A . 0 COurse th OUs to

aesthetIc. n example of a pur el ' at object's "r an object's f

. , V aesrh t' eason un .

decoratIon s primary function . -, e IC object " to be ,Ctlon

. d IS to add IS a dec IS StrO I

attractIVe; a orn; ornament' 6 d" something t Orative obO let y

. 1 'F ' an this rel t ' 0, So . lect f

us direct y to ormalist' art ad" a es dIrectly t as to mak \ Or

. h n criticism 7 F 0 tast e rna

cure) IS t e vanguard of decoration a '. ormalist an ~. And this Ie re

assert that its art condition is ' . ~d, stnctly speakin (painting and ads

II so muumaj th c g, one c 1 sculp_

not art at a , but pure exercises j at lor all funet' ou d reasonabl

b 0 h . es In aesth ti lonal p Y

Green erg IS t e critic of taste B hi d e lCS, Above II . urposes it '

• 0 • ,e In every . a thl IS

Judgement, With those Judgement f1 . one of his deci . .ngs Q~ment

reflect? The period he grew up ~ re ecting his taste, And Slohns 18 an aesthetic

8 In as a cri ti w at do hi

fifties. IC, the period 'r p es 1.8 taste

How else can one account for' hi ea for him: the

II hi .. ,gIven IS theori' "

them at a ,- IS disinterest in Frank St 11 e~ - If they have .

to his historical scheme? Is it becae [a, Ad ReInhardt, and othe any logic to

. h . use ... ] their k rs apphcab\

But In t e philosophic tabula rasa f " wor doesn't suit h" e

dd h 'd" , 0 art, If some IS taste~

]u as sal , It s art.' Given this f r . one calls it art ' D'

granted an 'art condition' but only b' y o~ma 1St f~alnting and sculptu~e a~a °bn

. ,vIrtue 0 Its P' n e

art Idea (e.g. a rectangularly-shaped canvas st h d resentatlon in terms of its

. d with h rete e over w d

stalne WIt sue and such colours usin h 00 en supports and

d h . ' g sue and such f '

an sue a VIsual experience etc.). If one 1 k orms, giving such

. . " 00 s at contempor '"

one reahzes the minimal creative effort tak h ary art In this hght

if 11 en on t e part of f l' ,

speer lea y, and all painters and sculptors ( ki orma 1St artists

hi bri , ' wor mg as such today) 11

T, IS rings us to the realization that formal' t d cri .. genera y,

d fi ' . f ' .. IS art an crmcism accepts as

e irunon 0 art one which exists solely on morpholo 0 1 d . a . f." gica groun s. While a vast

~uant1ty 0 similarly looking objects or images (or visually related objects or

images) may seem to be related (or connected) because of . '1" f

. II .' a SImI anty 0

vrsua experiential 'readings" one cannot claim from this an artistic or concep-

tual relationship.

It is obvious then that formalist criticism's reliance on morphology leads

necessarily with a bias toward the morphology of traditional art. And in this sense their criticism is not related to a 'scientific method' or any sort of empiricism (as Michael Fried, with his detailed descriptions of paintings and other 'scholarly' paraphernalia would want us to believe). Formalist criticism is no more than an analysis of the physical attributes of particular objects which happen to exist in a morphological context. But this doesn't add any knowledge (or facts) to our understanding of the nature or function of art. And nor d . it comment on whether or not the objects analysed are even works of art, I

that formalist critics always by-pass the conceptual element in works of a Exactly why they don't comment on the conceptual element in works of art

844 Institutions and Objections

precisely because formalist art is only art by virtue of its resemblance to .

works of art It's a mindless art. Or, as Lucy Lippard so 'succinctly d ea:her

• I. • J , 9 escrlb ,1

Jules Olitski's paintings: 'they're visual /vluea]: . . elt

Formalist critics and artists alike do not question the nature of art b

.' ,) ur as I

have said elsewhere: 'Being an artist now means to question the nature f

If one is questioning the nature of painting, one cannot be questioni 0 an.

., ( I ) he j ng the

nature of art. If an artist accepts pamnng or seu pture e IS acceptin

tradition that goes with it. That's because the word art is general and the ~ the painting is specific. Painting is a kind of art. If you make paintings Ord

. . . ) h t f to' You

are already accepting (not questionmg t e na udr~ .0 arf' '". IS. then accept ..

ing the nature of art to be the European tra itron 0 a paIntIng-SCulpture dichotomy.I'"

The strongest objection one can raise against a morphological justification f

. 1 . f b d' or

traditional art is that rnorphologica notions 0 ,ar~ em 0 y an Implied a priori

concept of art's possibilities. And such an a prton concept of the nature of

. " art

(as separate from analytically framed art propositions or work' which I will

discuss later) makes it, indeed, a priori: impossible to question the nature of art. And this questioning of the nature of art is a very important concept in understanding the function of art.

The function of art,as a question, was first raised by Marcel Duchamp. In fact it is Marcel Duchamp whom we can credit with giving art its own identity, (One can certainly see a tendency toward this self-identification of art beginning with Manet and Cezanne through to Cubism," but their works are timid and ambiguous by comparison with Duchamp's). 'Modern' art and the work before seemed connected by virtue of their morphology. Another way of putting it would be that art's 'language' remained the same, but it was saying new things. The event that made conceivable the realization that it was possible to 'speak another language' and still make sense in art was Marcel Duchamp's first unassisted Readymade. With the unassisted Readymade, art changed its focus from the form of the language to what was being said. Which means that it changed the nature of art from a question of morphology to a question of function. This change - one from 'appearance' to 'conception' - was the beginning of 'modern' art and the beginning of 'conceptual' art. All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually.

The 'value' of particular artists after Duchamp can be weighed according. to how much they questioned the nature of art; which is another way of saymg 'what they added to the conception of art' or what wasn't there before they started. Artists question the nature of art by presenting new propositions as to art's nature. And to do this one cannot concern oneself with the handed-down '1 'f ditior . thar

anguage 0 tra itional art, as this activity is based on the assumptIOn .

there is only one way of framing art propositions. But the very stuff of art IS indeed greatly related to 'creating' new propositions

The case is often made - particularly in reference "to Duchamp _ rhar ~bjcC~S of art (such as the readymades, of course, but all art is implied in thiS), ale . d d bi d' , ···elr'tant. JU ge as 0 ijets art In later years and the artists' intentions bCCOll1C til . t

S h . h . thet no

uc an argument IS t c case of a preconceived notion ordertng' roge

VIL\ Objecthood and Reductivi

necessariJ . . " . " sm 845

:} related facts. The point IS this: aesthetics as we h

arc Conce ' ,. ave point d

I " P:-ually Irrelevant to art. Thus, any physical thin c e out,

d ~~/, that IS to say, can be considered tasteful, ~estheticall g an ~ccome objet thiS ~as, no bearing on the object's application t y pleasIng, etc. But

fi '0 ' 0 an art Conte t, h " ,

unc I lung In an art context, (E.g. if a collecto k '. xt; t at IS, Its

d . . .' r ta es a pamri

an uses It as a dinIng-table It'S an act unrelar d ng, attaches legs

h ., e to art or th·' '

as art, t at wasn't the artist's intention.i c artist because,

And what holds true for Duchamp's work a 1"

hirr I pp ies as well to f

after irn. n other words, the value of Cub' c" most 0 th. e art

Ism - Lor Instan ""

the realm of art, not the physical or visual . ali , ,ce - IS Its idea in

. 1 " . qu tties seen In a spe 'fi ".

or the parncu anzanon of certain colours or sh F ci ic palntlng,

apes, or these c 1

are the art's 'language', not its meaning conceptu 11 . 0 ours and shapes

bi , k'·· a y as art. To look upon

Cu 1St masterwor now as art IS nonsensical co 11 . . a

art is concerned, (That visual information 'Whl·nchceptua y ~peakl~g, as far as was unique In Cub' ,

language has now been generally absorbed and has a lot t d ' h Ism. s

, h d 1 . h ' . , ' 0 0 WIt the way In

whic one ea S WIt. painting linguistically'. [E g what C bi ..

. 11 . , a U 1St painting meant

expertmenta Y and conceptually to say Gertrude Stein is b d

. .. ' , ,IS eyon our specu-

latIon because the same pamtmg then 'meant' something diff t h . d

" ' " 1 eren t an It oes

now.]) The value now of an original CUbISt painting is not unlik .

., I . 1 e, In most

respects, an origma manuscnpt by Lord Byron, or The Spirit of St L' .

" h S ' 'J . outs as It

is seen In t e mithsonian Institute, (Indeed, museums fill the very same

function as the S~i~hso~ian I~stitute - why else would the Jeu de Paume wing of the Louvre exhibit Cezanne s and van Gogh's palettes as proudly as they do their paintings?) Actual works of art are little more than historical curiosities. As far as art is concerned van Gogh's paintings aren't worth any more than his palette is. They are both 'collector's items' ,12

Art 'lives' through influencing other art, not by existing as the physical residue of an artist's ideas. The reason why different artists from the past are 'brought alive' again is because some aspect of their work becomes 'useable' by living artists. That there is no 'truth' as to what art is seems quite unrealized,

What is the function of art, or the nature of art? If we continue our analogy of the forms art takes as being art's language one can realize then that a work of art is a kind of proposition presented within the context of art as a comment

on art, We can then go further and analyse the types of 'prop?sitions'. ,

A. J. Ayer's evaluation of Kant's distinction betw~en an~I~t1c and synthetic is useful to us here: 'A proposition is analytic when Its v~hdtty d~pend~ s.olel~y on the definitions of the symbols it contains, and synthetlc when Its validity ~s determined by the facts of experience.'!) The analogy I will a~tempt to .~ake lIS

. . d he diti f the analytic propoSItiOn, n

one between the art condItIon an t e con 1 Ion 0 h'

. hi lse or be about anvt mg

that they don't appear to be believable as anyt mg e , .. h .

I Ifill referable only to art a, e

(other than art) the forms of art most ,c "" y Ina y

been forms closest to analytical pr.o~OSlt10ns .. is if viewed 'within their context

Works of art are analytic propOSlt1?ns. That 1 , bout an,' matter of fact.

'd 'c. t on what-50-ever a .

- as art they provi e no Inlorma 1 . . f the arti t's intention

. h " rcscntatlon 0 n._ ,

A work of art is a tautology In t at ir IS a p, . 0t -hich means i a

. I . k f art IS at w t,

that is, he is saying that that parncu ar wor 0 , '

846 Institutions and Objections definition of art. Thus, that it is art is true a p' . ( hi h' what Judd means

h h " non W rc IS

w en e s~at~s that 1~ some?ne calls. it art, it's art'). .

. Indeed, 1.t IS nearly Impossible to discuss art in general terms without talking In tautologies - for to attempt ~o 'grasp' art by any other 'handle' is to merely focus on another aspect or quality of the proposition which is usually irrelevant to the art work's 'art condition'. One begins to realize that art's 'art condition' is a conceptual state. That the language forms which the artist frames his propositions in are often 'private' codes or languages is an inevitable outcome of art's freedom from morphological constrictions; and it follows from this that one has to be familiar with contemporary art to appreciate it and understand it. Likewise one understands why the 'man on the street' is intolerant to artistic art and always demands art in a traditional 'language'. (And one understands why formalist art sells 'like hot cakes") Only in painting and sculpture did the artists all speak the same language. What is called 'Novelty Art' by the Formalists is of~en the attempt to. find new languag~s., although a new language doesn't necessarily mean the framing of new propositions: e.g. most kinetic and electronic art.

Another way of stating in relation to art what Ayer asserted about the analytic method in the context of language would be the following: The validity of artistic propositions is not dependent on any empirical, much less any aesth~etic presupposition about the nature of things. For the artist, as an analyst, is no; directly concerned with the physical properties of things. He is concerned only with the "way (1) in which art is capable of conceptual growth and (2) how his propositions are capable of logically following that growth." In other words, the propositions of art are not factual, but linguistic in character - that is, the) do not describe the behaviour of physical, or even mental objects; they express definitions of art, or the formal consequences of definitions of art. Accordingly, we can say that art operates on a logic. For we shall see that the characteristic mark of a purely logical enquiry is that it is concerned with the formal consequences of our definitions (of art) and not with questions of empirical fact. IS

To repeat, what art has in common with logic and mathematics is that it is a tautology; i.e., the 'art idea' (or 'work') and art are the same and can be appreciated as art without going outside the context of art for verification.

On the other hand, let us consider why art cannot be (or has difficulty when it attempts to be) a synthetic proposition. Or, that is to say, when the truth or falsity of its assertion is verifiable on empirical grounds. Ayer states: c ••• The criterion by which we determine the validity of an a priori or analytical proposition is not sufficient to determine the validity of an empirical or synthetic proposition. For it is characteristic of empirical propositions that their validity is not purely formal. To say that a geometrical proposition, or a system of geometrical propositions, is false, is to say that it is self-contradictory. But an empirical proposition, or a system of empirical propositions, may be free from contradiction, and still be false. It is said to be false, not because it is formally

. .' ,16

defective, but because it fails to satisfy some material cntenon,

The unreality of 'realistic' art is due to its framing as an art proposition in synthetic terms: one is always tempted to 'verify' the proposition empirically.

Rca I ism'. . V llil 0 bJec thood and Reductilll srn 847

.1' 1 s synthetic state docs not hrlng une to 1 . I

uta oguc with h . t circu ar swinu b .k .

hi. t c larger frame," ork of questions 1 h . . t:l. ac Into a

t e work f 1\1 1 ' . .:I a :lout t e natur ~ f

. 0 J' a evich, Momlr ian Pollock Rei h. 1 ,C 1I an (as does

Lichtenstein, Warhol Andre J~ldd Fl" .: tnT arl,t, early Rauschcnbcrg Johns

ather . ' , , ,1\ m, ,cWIt! 1\1 .... "

r . ~. one IS flung out uf art's 'orhi t' i t I ~ c : ', ,01 IlS, and others), but

conditIon. not ic infinite space' of the 1

ruman

Pure Expressionisnl, continuing with Ave i, " ,

such: 'A sent. ,. hi b consi _ er s terms could. be.... id

s ., . cnce W ic consu .. ted of d . 1 cunsu ercd as

a genuine proposition. It would be emon.stl'atl v~ symbols would not express

hie ' . . c a mere ejaculation in .

that to w ich It was supposed to r C , 10. .' " no way characterizing

. I' • erer. lexpreSSlOnIst wo k

'eJacu ations presented in the morph I . I I r'~ are usually such

Pollock is important it is because he p ? ~g~ca tnguage of traditional an. If floor, What isn '( important is that he allnt .e on °hoSC can vas horiz '. ontally to the

. a er put t ose drippi

and hung them parallel to the wall (In oth d ; ngs over stretchers

., . er wor swhat IS impo t: . .'

what one brings to It not one's adoption of h . L . ran. t In art 18

· .' w at was prCV10 1 ..

IS even less Important to art is Pollock's n t' f l - 1- us y existing.) W. hat

. 0 Ions 0 se f-expressi , b

those kinds of subjective meanings arc usele Ion ecause

· .. ess to anyone other th h

Involved with him personally. And their 'specific' ualitv. an .t ose art's context. q "puts them outside of

[, , .] As Ayer has stated: 'There are no absolutely certain ernpi " 1 .

tions. It is only tautologies that are certain Empirical ' ' Inca proposi-

. . questions are one and all

hypotheses, which may be confirmed or discredited in actual sense-ex .

1\ d h . . . . penence.

1 n t e proposrtions In which we recor~ the observations that verify these

hypotheses ,are themselves hypotheses which are subject to the test of further sense-experIence, Thus there is no final proposition.l"

What one finds all throughout the writings of Ad Reinhardt is this very similar

thesis of 'art-as-art', and that 'art is always dead, and a "living" art is a deception'Y Reinhardt had a very clear idea about the nature of art and his

· . '

Importance IS far from being recognized,

Forms of art that can be considered synthetic propositions are verifiable by

the world, that is to say, to understand these propositions one must leave the tautological-like framework of art and consider 'outside' information. But to consider it as art it is necessary to ignore this same outside information, because outside information (experiential qualities, to note) have their own intrinsic worth. And to comprehend this worth one does not need a state of 'art

condition' .

From this it is easy to realize that art's viability is not connected to the

presentation of visual ( or other) kinds of experience. That that may have been one of art's extraneous functions in the preceding centuries is not unlikely. After all, man in even the nineteenth-century lived in a fairly standardized visual environment. That is, it was ordinarily predictable as to what he would be coming into contact with day after day. His visual environme~t in the part the world in which he lived was fairly consistent. In our nme we have ~ experientially drastically richer environment. One can fly all. over the earth I a matter of hours and days, not months. We have the cmema, and colo television, as well as the man-made spectacle of the lights of Las Vegas or t

848 Institutions and Objections skyscrapers of New York City. The whole world '. .h

h J Id l IS t ere t h d h

woe wor can watchman walk on the moon fr I.'" ..0 c seen, an t e

. om t 1 e 11 II v 1 n J" C'

art or objects of painting and sculpture cannot be ex)", g rooms. _..crtalnly

entialJy with this? . 1 ceted to compete expert-

The notion of 'use' is relevant to art and its "language -R

•• ~ 4 4 • ccently the box

cube form has been used a great deal within the context of art cr. k . for : Or

its use by Judd, Morris, LeWitt, Bladen, Smith, Bell and' M ·~Cc. ~)kr.lnstancc

." h . 0 '. ' c rae cn ---- not

even mentronmg t e quantity of boxes and cubes that came after) Th .. liff

b 11 h '. . . c ui ercnce

etween ate varIOUS uses of the box or cube form is directly r '1 xl

diff . h'" c ate to the

irrerences In t e Intentions of the artists. Further as I'S' part icul: 1 . ,

, ' , '. ar y seen In

Judd s work, the use of the box or cube form illustrates very well 0 . I'

I· h ., ur car ier

calm t at an object IS only art when placed in the context of art.

A few examples will point this out. One could say that if one of Judd" b forms was see? ~lIed with debris, seen ?laced in an industrial setting, or s ev~~ merely seen sittmg on a street corner, It would not be identified with art. I follows then that understanding and consideration of it as an art work . t necessary a priori to viewing it in order to 'see' it as a work of art. Adva 1S . ~ . b nee In ormation a out the concept of art and about an artist's concepts is necessary

to the appreciation and understanding of contemporary art. Any and all of the physical attributes (qualities) of contemporary works if considered separately and/ or specifically are irrelevant to the art concept. The art concept (as judd said, though he didn't mean it this way) must be considered in its whole. To consider a concept's parts is invariably to consider aspects that are irrelevant to its art condition - or like reading parts of a definition.

It comes as no surprise that the art with the least fixed morphology is the example from which we decipher the nature of the general term 'art'. For where there is a context existing separately of its morphology and consisting of its function one is more likely to find results less conforming and predictable. It is in modern art's possession of a 'language' with the shortest history that the plausibility of the abandonment of that 'language' becomes most possible. It is understandable then that the art that came out of Western painting and sculpture is the most energetic, questioning (of its nature), and the least assuming of all the general 'art' concerns. In the final analysis, however, all of the arts have but (in Wittgenstein's terms) a 'family' resemblance.

Yet the various qualities relatable to an 'art condition' possessed by poetry, the novel, the cinema, the theatre, and various forms of music, etc., is that aspect of them most relatable to the function of art as asserted here. [ ... ]

'We see now that the axioms of a geometry are simply definitions, and that the theorems of a geometry are simply the logical consequences of these definitions. A geometry is not in itself about physical space; in itself it cannot be said to be "about" anything. But we can use a geometry to reason about physical space. That is to say, once we have given the axioms ~ phys~cal interpretation, we can proceed to apply the theorems to the objects which satisfy the axioms. Whether a geometry can be applied to the actual physical wo~ld or not, is an empirical question which falls outside the sc?pe of geom~try Itself. There is no sense, therefore, in asking which of the vanous geometries known

VIlA Objecthood and Reductivism 849 to Us are false and which are true. In so far as they are all free from cOntradiction, they are all true, The proposition which states that a certain application of a geomet~y is possible i~ not itself a proposition of that geometry.

All that the geometry Itself tells us IS that if anything can be brought under

the definitio~s, it will .a~so satisfy the theorems. It is therefore a purely logical system, and ItS proposi nons are p urel y anal yti c prop ositions.' _ A. J. A yer"

Here then I propose rests the viability of art. In an age when traditional philosophy is unreal because of its assumptions, art's ability to exist will depend not only on its not performing a service - as entertainment, visual (or other) experience, or decoration - which is something easily replaced by kitsch culture and technology, but rather, it will remain viable by not assuming a philosophical stance; for in art's unique character is the capacity to remain aloof from philosophical judgements, It is in this context that art shares similarities with logic, mathematics and, as well, science, But whereas the other endeavours are useful, art is not. Art indeed exists for its own sake.

In this period of man, after philosophy and religion, art may possibly be one endeavour that fulfills what another age might have called 'man's spiritual needs', Or, another way of putting it might be that art deals analogously with the state of things 'beyond physics' where philosophy had to make assertions. And art's strength is that even th~ pr~ceding s,enten~e is an asser.t~on, and cannot be verified by art. Art's only claim IS for art. Art IS the definition of art,

1 Morton White, The Age of Analysis, Mentor Books, New York, p, 14,

2 Ibid. p. 15, P ith h' idd! f. th

3 'b this Existentialism and Phenomenology. Even Merleau- onty, WIt IS IDl e-o -tne-

I mean Y I , hil h . h t th

d ., b tween Empiricism and Rationalism, cannot express his p asap Y wit au . e

roa pOSItIOn e . di . ithout

. f d (thus using concepts)' and following this, how can one lSCUSS expenence WI

use 0 wor s l ld?

disti ions between ourselves and the wor , ,

I sharPk Istlncthlo hil ophy has taken upon itself is the only 'function' it could perform WIthout T The tas suc p 1 os

ki hilosophic assertions, , d th

rna mg PI.. th t I i tend to speak for no one else. I arrive at . ese

5 I would like to make It clear, hO,w~ver, a hi n h' ki that rnv art since 1966 (if not before)

, 1· d j deed It IS from t IS t In mg jnat fnj ichael Bald .

conclusions a one, an In ,. " T y Atkinson that he and Michael Bal win

1 d Only recently did I realize after meeting err, ,

evo ve· , . , . 1 inions to mme

h irnilar though certainly not identica , opiruon '

s are Simi .,. D' ,- .r the American Language, . D .

6 Webster's New World ictumary 0Je - th N 1 d ] les Olitski Morris Louts, Ron avis,

1 f h k of Kenne 0 an) u, , th

7 The conceptual leve 0 t e wor , I. dismally low, that any that IS ere

th r Caro John Hoyland, Dan Chnst~ns,en et a . IS so

An On) . , . . ThiS IS seen later. f th

is supplied by the critics promonng It. ,., le reflect his background (and most 0 e

C ing Greenberg s rationa . . b ing his

8 Michael Fried's reasons ror usm f it i due to his desire, I suspect, to n ..

other formalist critics) as a 'scholar', b~t ~ore Q lea~lv sympathize with his desire to connect: scholarly studies into the modern wor! . ld ne ~n forge; h~wever, that an historian loves histor;

Y Tiepolo with Jules Olitski. One shou never , ,. .

sa , ... . .. . . . f the VI hitne;

more than anything, even art. , . of the last painting exhibltlOn 0

9 ' . her Hudson Retie» review

Lucy LIppard. , , , In .

Annual. . R. Arts Magazi/le, February 1969. 1) the Cubists

to 'Four interviews', by ~rthur R .. o~~' introduction to An-Languat« (~'ol. I: no. we~e acceptable.

II As Terry ~tkins~n pointed outhl~o ::al characteristics, but which on:s UI P,:~II~~ could just go to never questioned iJart,had mo:p hO 7sn't buying a light show, for. If ,he, ,\ ,in' amwing. He is

12 When someone 'buys a Flavin e id blv less. He isn t bu~ g .

h ds for canst era ,

a hardware store and get t e goo ,

subsidizing Flavin's activity as an arnst,

1

o

i to

. ti ns 824 Institutions and ObJeclO

. 'the most important sculptural value'S' .

, If' in his system, , 11l111arl '

shape irse .. IS,' 1 . k J dd has remarked that ),

speaking of hIS own wor, U . ,

. hi that is not absolutely plain begIns to have

. bl is that anyt lng " parts

the big pro em . . b able to work and do different things and \-

. . The thing IS to e ., Jet nOt

In some way. h ieee has. To me the piece With the brass and h

break up the wholeness t at a pt . t e

five \'erticals is above all that sha p«.

. . b" .t: t any rate what secures the wholeness of the b'

The shape IS the 0 jec . a .. , , hi hasi 0 Jeet

, - f h shape It is I believe, t IS emp asis on shape h

. h gleness 0 t e . , , t at

IS t e SIn . . .' n which nun1erous critics have mentioned, that JUdd'

accounts for the Impresslo , . s

and l\lorris's pieces are holloi».

II

Shape has also been central to the mo~t important paint,jng of the past several

. I several recent essays I have tried to show how, In the work of Noland

years. n d 11 db)

0 .. li ki d Stella a conflict has gra ua Y emerge etween shape as

Its 1, an , di f' nai a

fundamental property of objects an~ s_hape as a me rum 0 palntl~g. ROUghly,

the success or failure of a given paintmg has come to depend on its ability to hold or stamp itself out or compel conviction as. shape - tha~, o~, somehow to stave off or elude the question of whether or not It does so. Olitski s early spray paintings are the purest example of .paintings that eithe: hold or fail to hold as shapes; while in his more recent pictures, ~s well, as In the best of Noland's and Stella's recent work, the demand that a given picture hold as shape is staved off or eluded in various ways. What is at stake in this conflict is whether the pain tings or objects in question are experienced as paintings or as objects: and what decides their identity as painting is their confronting of the demand that they hold as shapes. Otherwise they are experienced as nothing more than objects. This can be summed up by saying that modernist painting has come to find it imperative that it defeat or suspend its own objecthood, and that the crucial factor in this undertaking is shape, but shape that must belong to painting - it must be pictorial, not, or not merely, literal. Whereas literalist art stakes everything on shape as a given property of objects, if not, indeed, as a kind of object in its own right. It aspires, not to defeat or suspend its own objecthood, but on the contrary to discover and project objecthood as such.

In his essay 'Recentness of Sculpture' Clement Greenberg discusses the effect of presence, which, from the start, has been associated with literalist work.'

[ ... ]

Presence can be conferred by size or by the look of non-art. Furthermore what non-art means today, and has meant for several years, is fairly specific. In 'After Abstract Expressionism' Greenberg wrote that 'a stretched or tacked-up canvas already exists as a picture - though not necessarily as a successful one,') For that reason, as. he remarks in 'Recentness of Sculpture,' the 'look of non-art was no longer available to painting.' Instead, 'the borderline between art and non-art had to be sought in the three-dimensional where sculpture was, and

where ev th' . I h . '

ery ing materia t - at was not art also was.' Greenberg goes on to sav:

Vera land'

I

as l

,

hh·

, ~

, to Pta\" das od's

red the and that han ome

[he Ijng kes of

.. arf and ~nd

~ar:

.' \lLt\ Ob e

look of machmery IS shunned now J cthood and R '

'[bel k of non-art, which is presu bbecause it does '. eductlVlsm 825

he 00 f ~. ., . rna ly a ,. not go f

[ .' urn or IntereSting. Incident _ I' n . Inert' I k ar enough t '

'J1iJll d h un Ike th 00 th owards

tIlJ rison (an w en I think of T' , e machine I at offers the '

cotllp3r hoW simple the object mav be Itnhguely I Would agr ook~. which is ar;~eb~

9rte d' . - 1 ere re' ee WIth hi _)

J1I urface, contour, an' spatial interyal ~1' ":aln the relatio t 1S), StIll no

of S .. n vthing is today - inclUding ad' .. ln1mal Works ns and interrela;io

JrrtOsr tu·_ OOr a bl . are re d b ns

ll. it would seem that a kind of art ne ' ta e, Or a blank he a le as art as

) et 1 id d hi arer the C d" s eet of '

/ ged or 1 eate at tt IS moment on Ulon of . paper ..

en,lsa ' non-art could

. . ' not be

eaning In this context of 'the co di .

,[he 111 • . n ltlon of

I1iog objecthood, It ~s a; :hough objecthood al non-art' is What I hay b

_i oces, secure somethIng S Identity, if not as no:_ne can, in the present c~rc een ~[a ulpture; or as though a work of art _ art, at least as neith . u,m-

I nor sc 1 . more accurat 1 ' er paInting

. ring or seu pture - were In some essent' 1 e )) a work of m d ' '

PalO ' h ia respect oernlst

J'f"here is, In any case, a s arp contrast b. not an object.

.l 1. ' etw een the li

, mood - a most, It seems, as an art' , Iteralist espous 1 f

obJec f 'd . In Its OWn righa 0

ainring's sel -1I~pose Imperative that it defeat or sus t, - and modernist

Ph ugh the medIum of sh.ape, In fact, from th p~nd ItS own objecthood

[ ro I' li . " e perspectIve of

'oring the itera 1St position evinces a sensib'li . recent modernist

Phaltical 'to its own: as though, from that perspl ty not simply alien b, ut anti-

t e , ' biect " ectlve, the de, d

the conditIOns of? Ject~ood are In direct conflict, man s of art and

Here the question anses: What is it about 'b' h

, I' . . 0 J eet ood as proj d

hrpostatlzed by the 1 teralists that makes it, if onl f rojecte and

# ," • h Y rom the perspective f

recent modermst paintmg, annt etical to art? 0

III

The answer I ",:ant to propose is this: the literalist espousal of objecthood amounts to nothing other than a plea for a new genre of theatre' and theatre

is now the negation of art, '

Literalist sensibility is theatrical because, to begin with, it is concerned with the actual circumstances in which the beholder encounters literalist work, Morris makes this explicit, Whereas in previous art 'what is to be had from the work is located strictly within [it],' the experience of literalist art is of an object in a situation - one that, virtually by definition, includes the beholder,

[, .. ]

Morris believes that this awareness is heightened by 'the strength of the

constant known shape the gestalt' ag ainst which the appearance of the piece

, " if d 1

from different points of view is constantly being compared, It is in,tens) ie a so

by the large scale of much literalist work [. ' .] The larger the obJect the more

we are forced to keep our distance from it:

I is th: h bi ' ace from our bodies, in

t IS t IS necessary greater distance of teo [ect In sp 'd [ h' h

d' 1 r pubhc rno e W ie

or er that it be seen at all that structures the nonpersona 0 , d b' t

M . ' 'd' between object an su }ec

. orns advocates]. However it is just this lstance ,,' b ecoroes

th ' h 'cal partICipatIOn

at creates a more extended situation, because P YSI

necessary,

IV

826 InstitutJOns and Objections

., orion of [he. 'nol1personal or public mod '

. Iity of i\lorriS s n .' h ' e Se

rrhc thcatnca I. ·f·h p"ece in conjunctIon WIt Its nonrelation I tIl\!oj

, h I gencSS 0 tel " a , Un"

obVIOU!-t: r C, ar " . c beholder _ not just physIcally but Psychically. It i ltat)

character, dlstan:eJ rh h. di tancing that makes the beholder a sUbject S,One might say, pr:clscly t IS b~S t But it do. es not follow that the larger thand .the

.' t on an 0 JCc ' . d . e p

piece In ques 1 . : " blic' character is estabhshe ; on the Contrarv 'b Ieee

the more securely ItS. pu 1 . rwhelm and the gigantic scale b .; 1 eYQnd

. . h object can ove . ecome

a certaIn size t e, ts to achieve presence through objecthood S the

d d ' Morrls wan " wh' h

loa c term, . 1 . of scale rather than through SIze alone [ rc

. e tarn argencss· , , .. ]

rcqUlre.s a c r Ii Iisr works of art must somehow confront the beh ". the things that are Irera 1 . d . . hi older

. hr almost say be place not Just In IS Space but' .

_ they must, one mig .. , .' In hlS

way, None of this, MorrIs maIntaIns,

. '. k f i t st in the object itself. But the concerns now are for Tn

mdlcates a lac 0 In ere .'. Of he vari >Hore

h . situation Control IS necessary 1 t e vanables of ob'

control of .. ,t e entire . . h b less j leer,

. b . d to function, The object as not ecome ess ImpOrtant I

light space, 0 y, are ' t

has ~erely hecomeless self-important.

.. . ..,

I . I hi k th remarking that 'the entire situation means exactly that· II

tIS, t In ,wor. . , There j . '. ,a

f ' '1· di g ir seems the beholder s body. ere IS nothing wIthln h'

o Jt - lnc U In , . , . IS

field of vision - nothing that he takes note of In any way - that, as it were

declares its irrelevance to the situation, and therefo~e to the experience, i~ question, On the contrar~, fa: something ,to be perceived at all is for it to be perceived as part of that SItuatton., Ev~rythl~g count~ - not a~ part of the object, but as part of the situation in which ItS objecthood IS established and on which

that objecthood at least partly depends.

Furthermore, the presence of literalist art, which Greenberg was the first to analyze, is basically a theatrical effect or quality - a kind of stage presence. It is a function, not just of the obtrusiveness and, often, even aggressiveness of literalist work, but of the special complicity that that work extorts from the beholder. Something is said to have presence when it demands that the beholder take it into account, that he take it seriously - and when the fulfillment of that demand consists simply in being aware of it and, so to speak, in acting accordingly. (Certain modes of seriousness are closed to the beholder by the work itself, i.e, those established by the finest painting and sculpture of the recent past. But, of course, those are hardly modes of seriousness in which most people feel at home, or that they even find tolerable.) Here again the experience f being distanced by the work in question seems crucial: the beholder knows imself to stand in an indeterminate, open-ended - and unexacting - relation subject to the impassive object on the wall or floor. In fact, being distanced y such objects is not, I suggest, entirely unlike being distanced, or crowded, Y, the silent presence of another person; the experience of coming upon literalist bjecrs unexpectedly - for example, in somewhat darkened rooms - can he trongJy, if momentarily, disquieting in just this way.

IS

re

I

.

In

be

~ctl 'ch

to .It

of the der hat

tlng the the ost

OWS tion need ded, alist be

, .. VIlA Obiecthood

re three roam reasons why thi , and Reducllvism 8· 27

""here a k ' IS IS so F'

1 Morris's reroar S Imply, compares f:' ' irst, the size of

I'or~' as ] Second, the entities or be' alrly closely with th much literalist

~odY' [ "that most closely approach th:nl~s en~oUntered in eve atdor the human

rflls . ' Iterahst . d 1 .. ry ay expe .

in re nd the whohstlc are other perso . S··, . 1 eas .of the no l' nence

, arY ad' 1 ns. Imllar\ h nre ational the

llOlt metry, an In genera for a kind of d y, t e literalist dilecri

syJ1l her,' d. or er that ~" pre 1 ecnon

for fter anot er, IS roote , not, as J ud d 18 81m ply ord

tniOgla nd scientific principles, whatever he seekffis to believe in ne;r 'h' '1' one

b' ca a hI· ta es the ,. p 1 oso-

P 1 hl'rd the apparent 0 lowness of most l' ... ese to be, but in nat

-\ d t '. . 1 bl Iterahst . k ure .

, P, an insIde - IS a most atantly anthro ' wor - the qualit f

ha~lJlg pomorphlc, l.. ,] y 0

V

SUggesting, then, that a kind of latent 0 h.' dd

1 atll . 1'·h r 1 en n t 1" .

pOIllorphlsm, res at t e core of literalist th . aura ism, Indeed

, pthrO eory and p ,

a f esence all but says as much, though rarely so k dl ract~ce, The concept

o pr eOt 'I didn't think of them [i.e. the scul nta e y as In Tony Smith's

Slate[ll , ' p ures he' al '

ulptUres but as presenc.es of a sort,' The latency . hiddenr made] as

sC . h b h hat the li or 1 enness of th

throporoorphlSm as een sue t at the literalists themsel h. . e

all h' se yes ave as we h

n felt free to c aractenze the modernist art they opp , ave

see, . d A h ose, e.g., the sculpture

f David Snuth an nt ony Caro, as anthropomorphic - h ,..

o .' beai a c aractenzanon

whose teeth, Imagmary to egm with, have just been pulled, Bv the . k

. . h I" l' J same to en

however what IS wrong Wit itera 1St work is not that it is anth hi '

, ,.' ropomorp IC

but that the meamng and, equally, the hiddenness of its anthropomorphism incurably theatric~l. (,',) The crucial ,distinction that I am proposing so fa:r~ ~ftll1een work that IS fu~damentally theatrical and TlJork that is not, It is theatricality that, whatever the differences between them, links artists like Bladen and Grosvenor, both of whom have allowed 'gigantic scale (to become) the loaded term' (Morris), with other, more restrained figures like Judd, Morris, Andre, McCracken, LeWitt and - despite the size of some of his pieces - Tony Smith.' And it is in the interest, though not explicitly in the name, of theatre that literalist ideology rejects both modernist painting and, at least in the hands of its most distinguished recent practitioners, modernist sculpture,

In this connection Tony Smith'S description of a car ride taken at night on

the New Jersey Turnpike before it was finished makes compelling reading (see VlA16j [, , ,) What seems to have been revealed to Smith that night was the pictorial nature of painting _ even, one might say, the conventional nature of an, And this Smith seems to have understoOd not as laying bare the e,ssence of

art b . 0 .,' h h nmarked unlIt all but

, ut as announcing Its end, In comparison Wit t e u ','

un . . h . k as experIenced from

structured turnpike _ more precIsely WIth t e turnpl e .

w' h' 'h . . ck Smith as almost

it In the car traveling on it - art appears to ave stru . id)

b ,. . . ' he has sru

a, surdly small (' All art today is an art of postage stamps, , ' CtfCU ' h s to have felt, no way to

Ifr tnscnbed, conventional. ' , ' There was, e seem . k nse of it in terms

ame' hi ,to rna ce se

of IS experience on the road, that IS, no way R h 'you just have to

ev ar~, to make art of it at least as art the~ was, at er ~ence alone is what

"penen .,. 'l (The ex pen

ce it - as It happens, as tt mere y u. .

828 Institutions and Objections

) Th -e is no suggestion that this is problematic in any \Va\' -r-

matters. er 0 , h II' .. ibl - .' the

. .' . learlj regarded by Smith as w 0 ) access: e to evervon ..

expenence IS C u -.' f' wh h J e, nOt

. . .' I bur in fact and the question 0 w et er or not one has

Just In pnncip e . ' • really

had it does not arise. [ ... .1 . . ~

,1\ hat mas Smith's experrence on the rurnpikei Or to put the same quest'

.. , .. d d 'II d lOn

h . if the turnpike airstrips an. rr groun are not works of

anot er wa). I " , ,. art

what are they? - What, indeed, if not empty., or abandoned, Situations? A.nd

h Smith's experience if not the expertence of w.hat I have been call'

w at was - .. . . . .'. .' ..' Ing

theatre? It is as though [he turnpike, al~stnps, and ~nll grou~d reveal the

theatrical character of literalist art, only WIthout t~e .obJect, that IS, without the art itself' - as though the object is needed only WIthin a room (or, perhaps, in any circumstances less extreme than these). In each of the above cases the obJ'e

- • f, 1 th ' ct

is, so to speak, replaced by somethIng: or examp~, on e turnpike by the

constant onrush of the road, the simultaneous recession of new reaches of dark pavement illumined by the onrushing head~ights,. th.e sense of t.he turnpike itself as something enormous abandoned, derelict, existmg for Smith alone and D

, . , , 0 Or

those in the car with him .... This last point IS Important. n the one hand

the turnpike, airstrips, and drill ground ~el.ong to no one; on t~e other, the situation established bv Smith's presence IS In each case felt by him to be his Moreover in each case being able to go on and on indefinitely is of the essence~ vVhat repiaces the object - what does the same jO? of ~ist~ncing or isolating the beholder, of making him a subject, that the object did In the closed room - is above all the endlessness, or objectlessness, of the approach or on-rush or perspective. It is the explicitness, that is to say, the sheer persistence, with which the experience presents itself as directed at him from outside (on the turnpike from outside the car) that simultaneously makes him a subject - makes him subject - and establishes the experience itself as something like that of a object, or rather, of objecthood. [ ... ]

VI

Smith's account of his experience on the turnpike bears witness to theatre' profound hostility to the arts, and discloses, precisely in the absence of th object and in what takes its place, what might be called the theatricality 0 objecthood. By the same token, however, the imperative that modernist paintin defeat or suspend its objecthood is at bottom the imperative that it defeat suspend theatre. And this means that there is a war going on between theatr and modernist painting, between the theatrical and the pictorial - a war that despite the literalists' explicit rejection of modernist painting and sculpture, . not basically a matter of program and ideology but of experience, conviction sensibility. [ ... ]

The starkness and apparent irreconcilability of this conflict is something n I remarked earlier that objecthood has become an issue for modernist pain only within the past several years. This, however, is not to say that before th present ~ituation came into being, paintings, or sculptures for that matter, simpl were objects. It would, I think, be closer to the truth to say that they sirnpl

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830 Institutions and Objections

this sense, a sense inextricably involved wit~ the c~nc~pt. of meaning, th everything in Caro's art that is worth looking at I.S In Its syntax. Care)' concentration upon syntax amounts, in Greenberg's VIew, to 'an emphasis abstractness, on radical unlikeness to nature." And Greenberg goes on to rem LNo other sculptor has gone as far from the structural ~o~ic of ordina ponderabJe th ings;' It is worth emphasizing, however, that this IS a ~unction more than the lowness, openness, part-by-partness, absence of enclosIng profil and centers of interest, unperspicuousness, etc., of Caros sculptures. Rat they defeat, or allay, objecthood by imitating, not gestures exactly, but t ejJi;~tlt')J of gesture; like certain music and poetry, they are possessed by t knowl~dge of the human body and how, in innumera~le. ways and moods, makes meaning. It is as though Caro's sculptures essentialize meaningfulness sucl: - as though the possibility of meaning what we say and do alone m his sculpture possible. All this, it is hardly necessary to add, makes Caro's a fountainhead of antiliteralist and antitheatrical sensibility. [ ... ]

VII

At this point I want to make a claim that I cannot hope to prove or substantia but that I believe nevertheless to be true: viz., that theatre and theatricality a at war today, not simply with modernist painting (or modernist painting a sculpture), but with art as such - and to the extent that the different arts be described as modernist, with modernist sensibility as such. This claim ca be broken down into three proposi tions or theses:

1 The success, even the survival, of the arts has come increasingly to depend their ability to defeat theatre. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than with theatre itself, where the need to defeat what I have been calling theatre chiefly made itself felt as the need to establish a drastically different rela to its audience. (The relevant texts are, of course, Brecht and Artaud.) F theatre has an audience - it exists for one - in a way the other arts do not; fact, this more than anything else is what modernist sensibility finds intolerab in theatre generally. Here it should be remarked that literalist art, too, posses an audience, though a somewhat special one: that the beholder is confronted literalist work within a situation that he experiences as his means that there an important sense in which the work in question exists for him alone, even he is not actually alone with the work at the time. [ ... ]

It is the overcoming of theatre that modernist sensibility finds most exalti and that it experiences as the hallmark of high art in our time. There however, one art that, by its very nature, escapes theatre entirely - the movie This helps explain why movies in general, including frankly appalling ones, acceptable to modernist sensibility whereas all but the most successful paintin sculpture, music, and poetry is not. Because cinema escapes theatre - auto ically, as it were - it provides a welcome and absorbing refuge to sensibiliti at war with theatre and theatricality, At the same time, the automatic, guaran character of the refuge - more accurately, the fact that what is provided is

832 Institutions and ObJf.!ctiOrlCi

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cndlcssnc~~ ihar, I hone been ClnIlTIllIg., 1~(·CTlI."flJ to Ilt(.ral'~t art ,ulli tlH'qt h~ essentially ,,1 rrC~CnlnH.·~1f n.f tndl(·c.,~~ {JrJ1H.)('fi,:I,tc,. duration, (Jnr'r af'~~'11 ~1nll:tll: account of hi;.. nigh: drive IS relevant ... Morris, If)O, has ,,>ralcd ('xpl tt .. l1 I '~l

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endlessness not just of objecthood but (~f time; or. a~ l ough thr "cn~c WhlCh

at bottom, theatre addresses j<,a, sense of te~p(Jrah~y, of t rme h()t h, pas ir)g an(i to come, simultaneouslv ap proaching and ret:edtnK, a') If appr<:-hcndc.:<11n all mfinit(! perspective ... IJ This preoccupation rnarkv a profound difference bet ecn In eraJ ist work and modernist paintjn~ and sculpture. It i'>, a~ thtJugh (HIeS experience of the latter has no duration - not hccau~c. one l~ [act eXptritncc.s a picture by Noland Of Olitski or a sculpture by I Ja~ld Smith or C,aro tn no time at all, but because ttl every moment the work usel] ~s wh{)/~y" munt]« t. 1, .. 1 It is this continuous and entire presentness, amounting, as It were, to the perpetual creation of itself, that one experiences as a kind of tn~tanJane{)u ne« : as though if only one were infinitely more acute, a single infinitel brief in~tant would be long enough to sec everything, to experience the work in all itt) depth and fullness, to be forever convinced by it. (Here it i~ worth noting that the concept of interest implies temporality in the form of continuing aUtntHm directed at the object, whereas the concept of conviction does not.J I Want tf) claim that it is by virtue of their presentness and instantaneousness that modernist pain ting and sculpture defeat theatre. In fact, J am tempted far beyond my knowledge to suggest that, faced with the need to defeat theatre, it is above all to the condition of painting and sculpture ~ the condition, that is, of existing in, indeed of secreting or constituting, a continuous and perpetual present - that the other contemporary modernist arts, most notably poetry and

. .

mUSIC, aspire.

VIII

This essay \\,111 be read as an attack on certain artists (and crtncs) and as a defense of others. And of course it is true that the desire to distinguish bet veen what is to me the authentic art of our time and other work, \\ hich, \ 'hatc\cr the dedication, passion, and intelligence of its creators, seems to me to share certain characteristics associated here with the concepts of literalism and theatre, has largely motivated what I have written. In these last sentences, however, 1 want to call attention to the utter pervasiveness - the virtual universality of the sensibility or mode of being that I have characterized as corrupted or perverted by theatre. We are all literalists most or all of our lh, s. Presentnes

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s grace.

sensibility '. Both employ imager) that is at on:e holisti~ and, in a sense, fragmen incomplete; both resort, to a. sl~ilar anthropomorphlzmg, of ob)C!c~~ or conglomerations of ob~aT)\ . , . both are capable ol ach,ICVl?g r~mllrkablc effects of presence 1 and both ten~ [0 deplo\ )CCt'i isolare objects anti persons m suuauons the closed roo~ and .the abandoned artlficial land and arc 3S rrnportant to Surrealism as to literalism .. , . 'This affinity can be summed up b. sC~Ile [hal Surrealist sensibility, as manifested in the work of certain artists, and literalist senSi~il~~~'lng both theatrical. r ... J . are

834 Institutions and Objections

7 Sol LeWitt (b. 1928) 'Paragraphs on Conceptual Art'

LeWitt's work is characterized by the use of repetiti~n ~nd permutation and by th syst~matic exclusion of any individual!ty of .tDUC~: Thl~ IS not, ~?wever, t~ say tha~ LeWltt's output should be unp~oblem~tlcaIlY Identlfl~d With. a tra~ltlon of rationalism in twentieth-century art. At the time this text ,was ~ntten his typical works Were openframed, rectangular structures presented In sene,s. In 1.9~8 he ~egan formulatin proposals for wall drawings, to be executed ,according to hls tnstrucnons, Although th~ notion of a 'Conceptual Art' had been van?usly canvassed sm~~ the early 1960s publication of this text provided the first public grounds for recognition of a movement'. First published in Artforum, vol. 5, no. 10, Summer 1967, pp. 79-83, from Which the present text is taken.

[ ... ] I will refer to the kind of art in which I am involved as conceptual art In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work.' When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it me~ns ~hat all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution IS a perfunctory affair, The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman. It is the objective of the artist who is concerned with conceptual art to make his work mentally interesting to the spectator, and therefore usually he would want it to become emotionally dry, There is no reason to suppose however, that the conceptual artist is out to bore the viewer. It is only the expectation of an emotional kick, to which one conditioned to expressionist art is accustomed, that would deter the viewer from perceiving this art.

Conceptual art is not necessarily logical. The logic of a piece or series of pieces is a device that is used at times only to be ruined. Logic may be used to camouflage the real intent of the artist, to lull the viewer into the belief that he understands the work, or to infer a paradoxical situation (such as logic vs. illogic)." The ideas need not be complex. Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable. In terms of idea the artist is free to even surprise himself. Ideas are discovered by intuition.

What the work of art looks like isn't too important. It has to look like something if it has physical form. No matter what form it may finally have it must begin with an idea. It is the process of conception and realization with