Art After Philosphy in Art After Philosophy and After

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Joseph Kosuth – Shifting Art from "How" to "Why"

Joseph Kosuth
Joseph Kosuth. Photograph courtesy of Interview Magazine

"The bodily works of art are the ideas." – Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth is 1 of the pioneers of installation fine art and conceptual art, a movement which emerged during the 1960s and 1970s and redefined the notion of the art object. Kosuth was amid the first artists to employ cribbing strategies, linguistic communication-based works, photography, installations and public media. He too wrote some of the earliest theoretical texts supporting these approaches. Throughout his career, Kosuth has continually explored the production and role of language and meaning in fine art.

Joseph Kosuth "water"
Joseph Kosuth, 'Titled (Art as Idea as Idea)' [H2o], 1966. Courtesy Guggenheim

Joseph Kosuth, New York and Conceptual Fine art

Kosuth, born in Toledo, Ohio in 1945, moved to New York in 1965 where he enrolled in the School of Visual Arts. He apace abandoned painting in favour of conceptual works, which he first showed in 1967 at the exhibition space he co-founded, known equally the Museum of Normal Fine art. That twelvemonth, Kosuth organised the exhibitions Nonanthropomorphic Art and Normal Fine art, where he and Christine Kozlov showed their works. Significantly, in his notes accompanying the exhibition, Kosuth wrote: "The bodily works of fine art are the ideas." That same year, he exhibited the serial Titled (Art as Idea every bit Idea). This series consisted of words that were at the cadre of the debate surrounding the status of modern art, rather than of visual imagery. The words at the core of the exhibition included "meaning," "object," "representation" and "theory." In 1969, Kosuth had his first solo show at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, and became the American editor of the Art and Language journal.

Fine art After Philosophy

In 1969, Kosuth published his seminal essay "Art Afterwards Philosophy," which argued that traditional art-historical discourse had reached its end. He proposed a radical investigation of the way in which art acquires its cultural significance and its status every bit art. Kosuth stated: "Beingness an artist now means to question the nature of art. If one is questioning the nature of painting, i cannot be questioning the nature of art… That'due south because the word 'art' is full general and the word 'painting' is specific. Painting is a kind of art. If yous make paintings you are already accepting (non questioning) the nature of fine art." During this important formative menstruation in his piece of work, Kosuth followed through with what Marcel Duchamp had proved with his readymades: art presupposes the beingness of an aesthetic entity fulfilling the criteria of what should be art. Every bit was the example with Duchamp's readymades, he declared them to be art and they became art. Kosuth used a linguistic arroyo to explore these bug of the presentation and definition of art.

Joseph Kosuth and the Philosophy of Language

Between 1971 and 1972, Kosuth studied anthropology and philosophy at the New School for Social Research, New York. There, he was peculiarly influenced by the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose writing on the philosophy of linguistic communication strongly influenced Kosuth's piece of work betwixt the tardily sixties and mid seventies. He began to devote his work to exploring the apply of words instead of visual imagery, also as the relationship between ideas, words and images. He borrowed the term 'Investigations' for his art in that period from Wittgenstein, assertive that philosophy could only survive through being art. 'Investigations' were similar a protection of the activity of art, a protection from fine art becoming decoration, fashion, or part of the art market, which was quite pervasive in the 1960s. Kosuth believed, similar Duchamp, that fine art was an intellectual activity.

Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965
Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965. Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery New York

"What I feel my work introduced – or conceptual art in general – was a shift from "how" to "why." – Joseph Kosuth

Iconic Works

Ane and 3 Chairs (1965)

One of Kosuth'due south best-known works is One and Three Chairs (1965), which is his visual expression of Plato's Theory of Forms. The piece features a wooden chair, a photograph of the chair, and a dictionary definition of the word "chair." According to Plato's theory, non-material abstract forms (or ideas) are the near primal kind of reality, as opposed to the physical earth. In this piece, Kosuth investigates this theory by representing a chair in these three different means.

Joseph Kosuth, Five Words in Blue Neon, 1965
Joseph Kosuth, V Words in Blue Neon, 1965. Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery

Five Words in Blue Neon (1965)

Joseph Kosuth uses colour to demonstrate the limits of language. In his words: "What is better for demonstrating the limits of language than the definition of a color? No text is more tortured in such a concise way, there really is no better place to feel the limits of language." This tin be seen is his famous work "Five Words in Blueish Neon," which consists only of blue neon lights spelling this phrase. When Kosuth created this work, he intended to branch out beyond the canvas, creating something that is arresting, something that grabs ane'due south attention.

The word "definition" - Art as Idea as Idea
Joseph Kosuth, Titled (Fine art as Idea every bit Idea) The Give-and-take "Definition" 1966-68. Courtesy MoMA

Art every bit Idea as Idea (1966-1968)

In his series Fine art as Idea as Idea, all objects and images are removed in favour of definitions taken from lexicon entries. In doing and so, Kosuth attempts to emphasize how language has the potential to purely convey meaning. He believes that any traces of the artist'due south hand should be eliminated from the production of art, so that ideas may exist expressed direct, immediately and wholly. The piece of work of art, for Kosuth, is the definition of the given word. For the purpose of presentation, Kosuth asks that his original cut-out dictionary entry is photographically enlarged to a specific dimension, each time the work is exhibited.

Double reading (1993) by Joseph Kosuth
Joseph Kosuth, Double Reading, 1993. Courtesy the creative person and Sammlung Wemhöner

Double Reading (1993)

For a 1993 exhibition at the Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles, Kosuth exhibited a serial in which he worked with cartoons. He took cartoons like Blondie, Wizard of Id, and Calvin and Hobbes, blew them upward and silk-screened them on laminated glass with neon. He then added quotes to each of the works past philosophers like Leibniz and Kierkegaard, matching the right cartoon with the right philosopher. When he arrived at the opening, a few Hollywood lawyers who were his collectors rushed up to him, asking whether he had obtained permission to use the cartoons. Kosuth answered: "No, no, I didn't. And I didn't go permission from Kierkegaard either. I pointed to the drawing and I said, 'That'southward not my work.' And so I pointed to the quote and I said, 'That'due south not my piece of work either. Those are props. My piece of work is the gap betwixt the 2. It'southward the surplus meaning that goes together to create.'

Joseph Kosuth'due south immense influence on the fine art world is all-time summed up in the artist's ain words: "What I feel my piece of work introduced – or conceptual art in general – was a shift from "how" to "why." – Joseph Kosuth

Relevantsources to acquire more than

Artland Joseph Kosuth Bio

Guggenheim

Interview Mag

Artland: Conceptual Fine art

Sean Kelly Gallery

sykespored1946.blogspot.com

Source: https://magazine.artland.com/joseph-kosuth-shifting-art-from-how-to-why/

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