- Understanding Conceptual art through postmodernism,
- postmodernism (going beyond modernism)
- modernism is about thinking rationally
- Postmodernism ambiguity chaos convention of different ideas
Umbrella term to define an era that entered after/beyond modernism. Is a conventional way of living.
Background Context
Conceptual art is ambiguous. There are multiple ways to interpret the work that uses conceptual art as its foundation. It is a formalism
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg stated that a painting or art should not represent the reality outside of the canvas.
He was comparing with the art back in the days where painting looks like reality (photograph).
Art should just represent itself, it doesn't have to represent the world out of it. This leads to the era of abstract painting. It questions on what form means. How can we create an internally consistent meaning (the meaning of the work is this)
This idea pushes towards sculpture. Art status is just the same as the object.
The meaning is in the organization that makes viewing of this box in a museum exist/legitimate. The Value of art is in the organization that makes it viewable.
Robert Moriss Minimalism period
In the late 1960s, Morris began introducing indeterminacy and temporality into the artistic process, referred to as Process art or Anti-Form. By cutting, dropping, or stacking everyday materials such as felt or rags, Morris emphasized the ephemeral nature of the artwork, which would ultimately change every time it was installed in a new space. This replaced what Morris posited as the fixed, static nature of Minimalist, or "object-type," art.
Robert Moriss disagrees with Clement. When looking at Jason Pollock, he said that the work has more value meaning than just the formal elements of work line shapes and etc. The subject of the work is the material. The art in conceptual art lies in the activity of the artist interacting with the world
Robert Rauschenberg White painting 1951 & 1959
- the shadow, the dust
-as airports for lights, shadows, and particles, establishing an enduring understanding of the series as receptive surfaces that respond to the world around them
- Building on this reading, Rauschenberg once referred to the works as clocks, saying that if one were sensitive enough to the subtle changes on their surfaces one could tell what time it was and what the weather was like outside
- Ultimately, the power of the White Paintings lies in the shifts in the attention they require from the viewer, asking us to slow down, watch closely over time, and inspect their mute painted surfaces for subtle shifts in color, light, and texture
John Cafe Silent Piece 1952
- the silence of the audience
- the awareness of silence and to the sound around us
- it is produced by the audience (the coughing, the chairs)
- work point to the reality of that situation
- they produce the meaning of the work collectively
- the audience produces the music
what does it mean is not relevant anymore
Andy Warhol 1962
where is the art?
- he positions himself as this passive consumer
- mass production and consumption
- repeating the same object over and over again just like in the factory
- pointing to that life or culture inside that factory (the main meaning of the artwork)
- When he first exhibited Campbell’s Soup Cans in 1962, the canvases were displayed together on shelves, like products in a grocery aisle. At the time, Campbell’s sold 32 soup varieties; each one of Warhol’s 32 canvases corresponds to a different flavor.
- Warhol said of Campbell’s soup, “I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.”
- not a concern in what is in the image, whats n the conventional structure, the spaces where the work is presented
Conceptualism in art practice of the 60s and 70s
What is it?
form of art that plays around with the mind
how can thoughts be made visual and distract convention of what we know
Joseph Kosuth (1965-1975)
In One and Three Chairs, Joseph Kosuth represents one chair three ways: as a manufactured chair, as a photograph, and as a copy of a dictionary entry for the word “chair.” The installation is thus composed of an object, an image, and words.
These open-ended questions are exactly what Kosuth wanted us to think about when he said that “art is making meaning.” By assembling these three alternative representations, Kosuth turns a simple wooden chair into an object of debate and even consternation, a platform for exploring new meanings.
- 3 terms of chain (object image and text)
- viewer interpretation of the object and text
- where is the meaning? the meaning of work is in language
- what is in people's head is different
- the artwork is not in the objects
"I used common, functional objects and to the left of the object would be a full-scale photograph of it and to the right of the object would be a photostat of a definition of the object from the dictionary. Everything you saw when you looked at the object had to be the same
that you saw in the photograph, so each time the work was exhibited the new installation necessitated a new photograph. I liked that the
work itself was something other than simply what you saw. By
changing the location, the object, the photograph and still having it
remain the same work was very interesting. It meant you could have
an art work which was that idea of an art work, and its formal
components weren't important"
"the value of particular artists... can be weighed
according to how much they questioned the nature of
art... the event that made conceivable the realization
that it was possible to 'speak another language' and
still make sense in art was Marcel Duschamp's first
unassisted Ready-made ... this change - one from
'appearance to conception' - was the beginning of
modern art and the beginning of conceptual art"
Marcel Duchamp Fountain 1917
- disruptions
- putting the toilet in an unusual place
- that becomes the meaning
He states that the objects were decontextualized and displaced by changing the angle from which they are viewed and by isolating, divorcing or removing them from their normal surroundings. The addition of a title or renaming is crucial, ‘displacement from the ordinary logical context was achieved by renaming the object, the new title having no obvious relationship to the object as ordinarily understood’
Joseph Kosuth
the art I call conceptual is based on the understanding of the "linguistic nature of all ar propositions"
- artwork operates linguistically
- more valuable when more people talk about it
- the object is only a trigger
- we create our own images
- audience produce meaning collectively
- become an active consumer
Joseph Kosuth's Works
John Baldesari 1965-1975
Sol Lewitt
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 means that 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.
- not just ideas, but to put work beforehand
- the artwork is the machine artwork
- it is the system that makes the art not the artist
- System nya apa?
A wall divided horizontally and vertically into four equal parts. Within each part, three of the four kinds of lines are superimposed.
May 1969
Black Pencil
- The artist is the one who instructs/make the machine that will be used by others
- artist is like the composer
- the artwork is in the instruction, no need to be physically made
- he give certificate to museums
- yg di beli concept nya
- concept in the form of certificate
- it is in the mind
"the plan would design the work. Some plans would require millions of variations, and some a limited number...In each case, however, the artist would select the basic form and rules that would govern the solution to the problem"
"when an artist uses a multiple modular method he usually chooses a simple and readily available form. The form itself is of very limited importance; it becomes the grammar for the total work."
