Buchloh, Conceptual Art

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Conceptual Art 1962-1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique ofInstitutionsAuthor(s): Benjamin H. D. BuchlohReviewed work(s):Source: October, Vol. 55 (Winter, 1990), pp. 105-143Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778941 .

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Conceptual Art 1962-1969: Fromthe AestheticofAdministrationto the Critiqueof Institutions*

BENJAMIN H. D. BUCHLOH

This monsteralledbeautysnoteternal.Weknow hat urbreath ad nobeginningndwill never top, utwecan,above ll, conceivef heworld'screation nd itsend.- Apollinaire,Les peintres ubistes

Allergic oanyrelapse ntomagic, rt spartand parcelof hedisenchant-ment ftheworld, ouseMax Weber's erm. t is inextricablyntertwinedwithrationalization.Whatmeans and productivemethodsrt has at itsdisposalare all derivedrom hisnexus.-Theodor Adorno

A twenty-yearistance eparatesus from hehistoricalmomentofConcep-tual Art. It is a distance that both allows and obliges us to contemplatethemovement'shistoryn a broader perspective hanthatof the convictionsheldduring the decade of its emergence and operation (roughlyfrom1965 to itstemporary isappearance in 1975). For to historicizeConceptual Artrequires,first fall, a clarification f the wide rangeofoften onflicting ositions nd themutually xclusivetypes f investigationhatweregeneratedduringthisperiod.But beyondthat there are broaderproblemsofmethodand of "interest."For at thisuncture,anyhistoricization as to considerwhattypeofquestions nart-historicalpproach traditionally ased on thestudy fvisualobjects canlegitimately ose or hope to answer in the contextof artisticpracticesthatexplicitlynsisted n beingaddressedoutsideoftheparameters ftheproductionof formally rdered, perceptual objects, and certainly utside of those of arthistorynd criticism.And, further,uchan historicizationmust lso addressthe

* An earlierversionofthisessaywaspublished nL'art conceptuel:neperspectiveParis:Mus&ed'art modernede la Ville de Paris, 1989).


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ConceptualArt1962-1969 107

currency f the historical bject, i.e., the motivation o rediscoverConceptualArtfrom hevantagepointof the late 1980s: the dialecticthat inksConceptualArt,as the mostrigorouselimination f visuality nd traditionaldefinitions frepresentation,o thisdecade of a ratherviolentrestoration ftraditional rtisticforms nd proceduresof production.It is withCubism,ofcourse,thatelements f anguagesurfaceprogramma-ticallywithin the visual field for the first ime in the historyof modernistpainting, n what can be seen as a legacyof Mallarm&. t is there too that aparallel sestablished etweentheemerging tructuralistnalysis f anguageandthe formalist xamination of representation.But Conceptual practiceswentbeyondsuchmappingof thelinguisticmodel onto theperceptualmodel,outdis-tancingas theydid the spatializationof language and the temporalization fvisual structure. ecause theproposalinherentnConceptualArt was to replacetheobjectofspatialand perceptualexperienceby inguistic efinitionlone (theworkas analyticproposition), t thusconstituted he mostconsequentialassaulton the status of thatobject: itsvisuality,tscommodity tatus, nd its formofdistribution. onfrontinghefullrangeofthe implications fDuchamp's legacyfor the first ime,Conceptual practices,furthermore,eflectedupon the con-structionnd the role (or thedeath)ofthe author ust as much as theyredefinedtheconditions freceivershipnd the role ofthespectator.Thus theyperformedthepostwarperiod's mostrigorous nvestigation f the conventions fpictorialand sculptural representation nd a critique of the traditionalparadigms ofvisuality.From itsvery beginning, he historicphase in whichConceptual Art wasdeveloped comprises ucha complex rangeofmutually pposed approachesthatanyattempt t a retrospectiveurveymustbeware oftheforceful oices (mostlythoseofthe artists hemselves) emandingrespectforthepurity nd orthodoxyof the movement.Preciselybecause of thisrange of implications f ConceptualArt, twould seem imperative o resist construction f itshistoryn terms f astylistic omogenization,whichwould limit hathistory oa groupofindividualsand a set of strictly efinedpracticesand historical nterventionssuch as, forexample, the activities nitiatedbySeth Siegelaub in New York in 1968 or theauthoritarian uests fororthodoxybythe EnglishArt & Language group).To historicize onceptArt to use the term s itwascoinedbyHenryFlyntin 1961)1at thismoment, hen,requiresmorethan a merereconstructionfthe1. As is usual withstylistic ormationsn the history f art, the originand the name of themovement re heavily ontestedbyitsmajorparticipants. arry,Kosuth, nd Weiner,forexample,vehemently enied in recent conversationswith the author any historical onnectionto or evenknowledgeof the Fluxus movementof the early 1960s. Nevertheless, t least withregard to theinvention f theterm,t seems correctwhenHenryFlynt laimsthat he is "the originator fconceptart,the most nfluential ontemporaryrt trend. n 1961 I authored and copyrighted) hephrase'conceptart,' the rationalefor t and the first ompositionsabeled 'conceptart.' Mydocument wasfirstprintedin An Anthology,d. La Monte Young, New York, 1962." (La Monte Young's AnAnthologyas in factpublished n 1963.)


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movement's elf-declared rimary ctors or a scholarly bedience to theirpro-claimedpurity f intentions nd operations.2 heir convictionswerevoiced withthe (by now oftenhilarious) self-righteousnesshat is continuous withinthetradition f hypertrophiclaims made in avant-gardedeclarationsof the twen-tiethcentury.For example, one of the campaignstatementsbyJosephKosuthfrom the late 1960s asserts:"Art before the modernperiod is as much art asNeanderthal man is man. It is for this reason that around the same time Ireplacedthe term work' for artproposition.ecause a conceptualwork fartinthe traditional ense,is a contradictionn terms."'It seemscrucialto remember hat theoppositionswithin heformation fConceptual Art arose partlyfromthe different eadingsof Minimalsculpture(and of itspictorialequivalents n thepaintingof Mangold, Ryman, nd Stella)and in the consequencesthegenerationof artists merging n 1965 drew fromthosereadings just as thedivergences lso resultedfrom heimpactof variousartistswithin heMinimalistmovement s one or another waschosenbythenewgeneration s itscentralfigures f reference. or example,Dan Grahamseems tohavebeen primarilyngagedwith heworkofSol LeWitt. n 1965 he organizedLeWitt'sfirst ne-person xhibition held in hisgallery, alled Daniels Gallery);in 1967 he wrote the essay "Two Structures:Sol LeWitt"; and in 1969 heconcluded theintroductiono hisself-publishedolume ofwritingsntitled ndMomentss follows: It should be obvious theimportance ol LeWitt's work hashad formywork. n thearticlehere included written irstn 1967, rewrittenn1969) I hope only that the after-the-factppreciationhasn't too much sub-mergedhis seminalwork ntomy ategories."4

A second contestant orthetermwas EdwardKienholz,withhisseries ofConcept ableaux n1963 (infact, ccasionallyhe is still reditedwith hediscovery f the term. ee for xampleRobertaSmith's ssay"ConceptualArt," nConcepts fModernArt, d. NikosStangos NewYork:HarperandRow, 1981], pp. 256-70).JosephKosuth claims n his"SixthInvestigation 969 Proposition14" (publishedbyGerd deVries,Cologne, 1971, n.p.) thathe used the term conceptual" for he first ime "in a seriesof notesdated 1966 and published year ater n a cataloguefor n exhibition itledNon-Anthropomorphicrtat thenow defunctLannisGallery n New York."And then there are of course (mostofficiallyccepted by all participants) ol LeWitt's twofamous extsfrom1967 and 1969, the"Paragraphson ConceptualArt,"first ublished nArtforum,vol.V, no. 10,pp. 56- 57 and "Sentences on ConceptualArt,"first ublished n Art& Language,vol.1, no. 1 (May 1969), pp. 11-13.2. For a typical xampleof an attempt o write hehistory fConceptualArtby blindly doptingand repeatingthe claims and convictionsof one of thathistory'sfigures, ee Gudrun Inboden,"JosephKosuth--Artistand CriticofModernism," nJosephKosuth:TheMakingofMeaning Stutt-gart:Staatsgalerie tuttgart, 981), pp. 11-27.3. JosephKosuth, The Sixth nvestigation969 Proposition 4 (Cologne: Gerd De Vries/PaulMaenz, 1971), n. p.4. Dan Graham,End MomentsNew York, 1969), n.p. The otherMinimalistswithwhose workGraham seems to have been particularlynvolved were Dan Flavin (Graham wrote the catalogueessayforFlavin's exhibition t the MuseumofContemporaryArtin Chicago in 1967) and RobertMorris whosework he discussed aterextensivelyn his essay"Income Piece" in 1973).


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MelBochner. orkingrawingsndOtherVisibleThings nPaperNotNecessarily eant oBeViewed s Art. nstallation,chool fVisualArtsGallery,ecember,966.Mel Bochner,bycontrast, eems to have chosen Dan Flavin as hisprimaryfigure freference.He wroteone ofthe firstessayson Dan Flavin it s infacttext-collage f accumulatedquotations,all of whichrelate in one wayor theotherto Flavin'swork).5 hortly hereafter,hetext-collage s a presentationalmode would, indeed, become formativewithinBochner'sactivities, or in thesameyearhe organizedwhat was probably he firsttruly onceptualexhibition(both n terms f materials eingexhibited nd in terms fpresentationaltyle).EntitledWorkingrawings ndOtherVisible hings nPaperNotNecessarily eanttoBe Viewed s Art at the School of Visual Arts n 1966), most of the Minimalartistswerepresent longwith numberofthen till atherunknownPost-Mini-mal and Conceptual artists.Having assembleddrawings, ketches, ocuments,tabulations, nd otherparaphernaliaof the productionprocess,the exhibitionlimited tself opresentinghe"originals" nXeroxesassembled nto four oose-leafbinders hatwere nstalled n pedestals nthe centerofthe exhibition pace.Whileone shouldnotoverestimate heimportance f suchfeaturesnorshouldone underestimate he pragmaticsof such a presentational tyle),Bochner'sinterventionlearlymoved to transform oth the format nd space of exhibi-tions.As such, t ndicates hat he kindoftransformationfexhibition paceand

of thedevicesthroughwhich rt is presentedthatwas accomplishedtwoyears5. Mel Bochner,"Less is Less (forDan Flavin),"Art nd ArtistsSummer 1966).


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laterbySeth Siegelaub's exhibitions nd publicationse.g., TheXeroxBook)hadalreadybecome a common concern of thegeneration f post-Minimalrtists.A third xampleoftheclosegenerational equencingwould be the fact hatJosephKosuth eemsto have chosen DonaldJudd s hiskeyfigure: t leastone ofthe earlytautologicalneon worksfrom theProto-Investigationss dedicated toDonald Judd;and throughout he secondpartof "Art afterPhilosophy" pub-lished n November,1969),Judd'sname, work, nd writingsre invokedwiththe samefrequencys thoseofDuchampand Reinhardt.At theend of this ssay,Kosuthexplicitly tates:"I would hastily dd to that,however, hat was cer-tainlymuch more influenced yAd Reinhardt,DuchampviaJohns nd Morris,

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SolLeWitt. all FloorPiece ThreeSquares). 966.


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ConceptualArt 1962-1969 111

and by Donald Judd than I ever was specifically y LeWitt . .. Pollock andJuddare, I feel,the beginning nd end of American dominance in art."6

Sol LeWitt's tructuresIt would seem that LeWitt's proto-Conceptualwork of the early 1960soriginated nan understanding ftheessentialdilemmathathas haunted artisticproduction since 1913, when its basic paradigms of opposition were firstformulateda dilemmathatcould be describedas the conflict etweenstruc-turalspecificitynd randomorganization.For the need, on the one hand, forbotha systematic eduction nd an empiricalverification f theperceptualdataofa visual structure tandsopposed to thedesire,on theotherhand,to assignanew "idea" or meaningto an object randomly in the manner of Mallarme's"transposition") s thoughthe object were an empty linguistic) ignifier.This was thedilemmathatRoland Barthesdescribed n 1956 as the "diffi-cultyof our times"in the concludingparagraphsofMythologies:It seemsthatthis sa difficultyertaining o our times:there s as yetonlyone possiblechoice,and this hoice can bear onlyon twoequallyextrememethods:eitherto posita realitywhich sentirely ermeableto history, nd ideologize; or, conversely, o posit a realitywhich sultimatelympenetrable, rreducible, nd, in thiscase, poetize. In aword, I do not yetsee a synthesis etween ideologyand poetry bypoetry understand,n a verygeneral way,thesearchfor the nalien-able meaningof things).7Bothcritiques fthe traditional ractices frepresentationnthe Americanpostwarcontexthad at first ppeared mutually xclusiveand had oftenfiercelyattacked each other. For example, Reinhardt's extreme formof self-critical,perceptualpositivism ad gone too farformost of theNew York School artistsand certainly ortheapologistsofAmericanmodernism,mainlyGreenbergandFried,whohad constructed paradoxical dogma oftranscendentalismnd self-referential ritique.On the otherhand,Reinhardtwas as vociferous s they- if

6. JosephKosuth,"Art afterPhilosophy" Part II), in TheMakingofMeaning,p. 175. The listwould seemcomplete, f twere not for heabsence of Mel Bochner'sand On Kawara's name,and itsexplicit negation of the importanceof Sol LeWitt. According to Bochner,who had become aninstructor t theSchool of Visual Arts n 1965,JosephKosuthworked withhimas a student n 1965and 1966. Dan Graham mentioned thatduringthat timeKosuth was also a frequentvisitor o thestudiosofOn Kawara and Sol LeWitt. Kosuth'sexplicitnegationmakesone wonderwhether twasnotprecisely ol LeWitt's seriesof theso-called"Structures" suchas Red Square,White etters, orexample,producedin 1962 and exhibited n 1965) thatwas one ofthe crucialpoints fdepartureforthe formulation f Kosuth'sProto-Investigations.7. Roland Barthes,Mythologies,rans.AnnetteLavers New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), p. 158.


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notmore so inhiscontempt ortheopposite,which s to say,theDuchampiantradition.This is evident n Ad Reinhardt's ondescendingremarks bout bothDuchamp--"I've never approved or liked anything bout Marcel Duchamp.You have to chosebetweenDuchampand Mondrian" -and hislegacyas repre-sentedthroughCage and Rauschenberg--"Then the wholemixture, henum-ber of poets and musicians nd writersmixed up withart. Disreputable. Cage,Cunningham,Johns,Rauschenberg. I'm against the mixtureof all the arts,againstthemixture f art and lifeyou know,everyday ife."8What slidbyunnoticedwas thefact hat boththesecritiques frepresenta-tion ed tohighly omparableformal nd structural esults(e.g., Rauschenberg'smonochromesin 1951-1953 and Reinhardt's monochromes such as BlackQuadruptychn 1955). Furthermore, ven while made fromopposite vantagepoints, he critical rguments ccompanying uchworkssystematicallyenied thetraditional rinciples nd functions f visualrepresentation,onstructingston-ishingly imilar itaniesof negation.This is as evident,forexample, in the textpreparedbyJohn Cage forRauschenberg'sWhite aintingsn 1953 as it s inAdReinhardt's 1962 manifesto Art as Art." FirstCage:To whom,No subject,No image,No taste,No object,No beauty,Notalent,No technique (no why),No idea, No intention,No art, Nofeeling,No black,No whiteno (and). After carefulconsiderationhave come to the conclusion that thereis nothing n thesepaintingsthatcould not be changed,thatthey an be seen in anylight nd arenotdestroyedbythe actionof shadows.Hallelujah! the blind can seeagain; the water s fine.9And thenAd Reinhardt'smanifesto orhis own "Art as Art" principle:No linesor imaginings, o shapesor composings r representings, ovisionsor sensations r impulses,no symbols r signsor impastos,nodecoratings r coloringsor picturings, o pleasuresor pains,no acci-dentsor ready-mades, o things, o ideas,no relations,no attributes,

no qualities--nothing that s not of the essence.'0Ad Reinhardt'sempiricistAmericanformalismcondensed in his "Art asArt" formula)and Duchamp's critiqueof visualityvoiced forexample in the8. The firstfthe twoquotations sto be found n Ad Reinhardt'sSkowhegan ecture,deliveredin 1967, quoted by Lucy Lippard in AdReinhardtNew York, 1981), p. 195. The secondstatementappears in an interviewwithMaryFuller,publishedas "An Ad ReinhardtMonologue," Artforum,vol. 10 (November 1971), pp. 36-41.9. John Cage (statementn reaction to the controversy ngenderedby the exhibition f Raus-chenberg'sall-whitepaintings t the Stable Gallery,September 15-October 3, 1953). Printed nEmilyGenauer's column in theNewYorkHerald Tribune, ecember 27, 1953, p. 6 (section4).10. Ad Reinhardt, Artas Art,"Art nternationalDecember 1962). Reprinted nArt s Art:TheSelectedWritingsfAd Reinhardt,d. Barbara Rose (New York: Viking,1975), p. 56.


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famousquip: "All mywork n the period before the Nude was visualpainting.Then I came tothe dea. ... "") appear inthehistoricallyatherunlikely usionof Kosuth'sattempt o integrate he twopositions n the mid-1960s, eading tohis own formula,which he deployed startingn 1966, "Art as Idea as Idea." Itshould be noted,however, hatthestrange dmixtureofthenominalist ositionofDuchamp (and itsconsequences)and thepositivist ositionofReinhardt andits implications)was not only accomplished in 1965 with the beginningsofConceptual Art but was well-prepared n the work of Frank Stella,who in hisBlackPaintings rom1959 claimedbothRauschenberg'smonochromepaintingsand Reinhardt'spaintings s pointsofdeparture. Finally, t was the work ofSolLeWitt inparticularwork uch as hisStructures thatdemarcates hatprecisetransition,ntegratings theydo both language and visual sign in a structuralmodel.The surfacesof these Structuresrom1961 to 1962 (some of whichusedsingleframes romMuybridge's erialphotographs) arried nscriptionsnblandletteringdentifyinghehue and shapeofthosesurfacese.g., "RED SQUARE")and the inscriptiontself e.g.,"WHITE LETTERS"). Since these inscriptionsnamed eitherthe supportor the inscriptionor, in the middle section of thepainting, othsupport nd inscriptionna paradoxical inversion), hey reated acontinuous onflictntheviewer/reader.This conflictwasnot ust over which fthetworolesshould be performednrelation o thepainting.To a largerextentit concerned the reliability f the given information nd the sequence of thatinformation:was the inscription o be given primacyover the visual qualitiesidentified ythelinguistic ntity, r was theperceptualexperienceofthevisual,formal, nd chromatic lement anteriorto itsmere denominationbylanguage?Clearlythis"mappingof the linguistic nto theperceptual"was notargu-ing n favorof "the idea" -or linguistic rimacy or thedefinition fthe workof artas an analytic roposition.Quite to thecontrary,hepermutational harac-teroftheworksuggestedthat theviewer/reader ystematicallyerform ll thevisual and textualoptionsthepainting'sparameters llowed for. This includedan acknowledgment fthepainting's entral, quare element:a spatialvoid thatrevealed the underlyingwall surface as the painting'sarchitecturalsupportinactual space, thereby uspendingthe readingof thepaintingbetweenarchitec-turalstructure nd linguistic efinition.Rather thanprivileging ne over theother,LeWitt's work in itsdialoguewithJasperJohns's egacyofparadox) insisted n forcing he nherent ontradic-tions of the two spheres (that of the perceptual experience and that of thelinguistic xperience) into the highestpossible relief.Unlike Frank Stella's re-sponsetoJohns,whichforcedmodernistself-referentialityne stepfurtherntotheultimate ul desac of itspositivist onvictionshisnotorious tatement what11. Marcel Duchamp, interviewwithFrancis Roberts 1963), ArtNews, December 1968), p. 46.


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Sol LeWitt.ntitledRedSquare,White etters).1962.

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you see iswhatyousee" would attest o thatust as much as thedevelopment fhis laterwork),12 ol LeWitt's dialogue (withbothJohnsand Stella, and ulti-

12. Stella's famousstatementwas of course made in the conversationbetween Bruce Glaser,Donald Judd,and himself,n February1964, and published n ArtNews(September1966), pp.55-61. To whatextent the problemof thisdilemmahaunted the generationof Minimalartistsbecomes evidentwhen almost ten years ater, n an interviewwithJackBurnham,RobertMorriswouldstill eem to be responding ifperhapsunconsciously)o Stella's notorious tatement:Paintingceased to interestme. There were certainthings bout it thatseemed veryproblematic o me. ... There was a bigconflict etweenthe factofdoingthis hing,and what t looked like ater. t ust didn't seemto make muchsense to me. Primarily


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mately, f course,withGreenberg)developed a dialecticalpositionwithregardto thepositivist egacy.In contrast o Stella,his worknowrevealedthat themodernistcompulsionfor empiricist elf-reflexivenessot onlyoriginated n the scientific ositivismwhich is the founding ogic of capitalism undergirding ts industrialformsofproduction ust as muchas its cienceand theory), utthat, or n artisticpracticethat nternalized hispositivism y insisting n a purely empiricist pproach tovision,therewould be a finaldestiny.This destinywould be to aspire to theconditionof tautology.It is not surprising,hen,thatwhenLeWittformulatedhis second text onConceptual Art-in his "Sentences on Conceptual Art" fromthe springof1969-rthe first entenceshould programmaticallytate the radical differencebetweenthe logic of scientific roduction nd that of aesthetic xperience:1. Conceptualartists re mystics ather hanrationalists.They leap toconclusionsthat ogic cannot reach.2. Rational udgmentsrepeat rational udgments.3. Irrationaludgmentslead to new experience.13

RobertMorris'sParadoxesTheproblem as been orsome ime neof deas those most dmired rethe neswith he iggest, ostncisivedeas e.g.,Cage& Duchamp) Ithink hat oday rt is a form farthistory.

- RobertMorris, etter o HenryFlynt, /13/1962Quite evidently,Morris'sapproach to Duchamp, in the early 1960s, hadalready been based on reading the readymade in analogy with a Saussureanmodel of language: a modelwheremeaning s generatedbystructural elation-ships.As Morrisrecalls,hisown "fascinationwith nd respectforDuchamp wasrelated to his linguisticfixation, o the idea that all of his operationswereultimately uilt on a sophisticated nderstanding f language itself."'4Accord-ingly,Morris's early work (from 1961 to 1963) already pointed toward anunderstanding fDuchamp thattranscended helimiteddefinition ftheready-because therewas an activity did in time, nd therewas a certainmethodto it.Andthatdidn'tseem to haveanyrelationship o thething tall. There is a certainresolutionin the theaterwhere there sreal time, nd what oudo iswhatyoudo. (emphasis dded)

Robert Morris,unpublishedinterviewwithJack Burnham,November 21, 1975, Robert MorrisArchive.Quoted inMauriceBerger,Labyrinths:obertMorris,Minimalism,nd the 960s (New York:Harper & Row, 1989), p. 25.13. Sol LeWitt, "Sentences on Conceptual Art," first ublishedin 0-9, New York (1969), andArt-Language, oventryMay 1969), p. 11.14. Robert Morris s quoted in Berger, Labyrinths,. 22.


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made as the meredisplacement f traditionalmodes of artistic roductionbyanewaesthetic fthespeechact ("this s a workof art f sayso"). And inmarkeddistinction rom heConceptualists' ubsequent xclusivefocuson theunassistedreadymades,Morrishad, fromthe late 1950s when he discoveredDuchamp,been particularly ngaged with work such as Three tandardStoppages nd theNotes ortheLargeGlass (TheGreenBox).Morris'sproductionfrom heearly1960s, inparticularworks ike CardFile(1962), Metered ulb (1963), I-Box 1963), Litanies, nd the StatementfAestheticWithdrawal,lso entitledDocument1963), indicateda readingofDuchamp thatclearlywentbeyondJohns's, eadingtowards structural nd semioticdefinitionof the functions f thereadymade.As Morrisdescribed tretrospectivelynhis1970 essay"Some Notes on the PhenomenologyofMaking":There is a binary wingbetweenthearbitrarynd thenonarbitraryr"motivated"which s . . . an historical, volutionary, r diachronicfeatureoflanguage'sdevelopment nd change. Language is notplas-ticartbutbothare forms f humanbehavior nd thestructures f onecan be compared to the structures f the other.'5While it sworthnoticing hatby 1970 Morrisalreadyreaffirmedpodicti-callytheontologicalcharacterof thecategory"plastic" art versusthat of "lan-guage," it was in theearly1960s thathisassaults on thetraditional onceptsofvisualitynd plasticity ad alreadybegun to laysome ofthe crucialfoundationsfor thedevelopmentofan artpractice emphasizing tsparallels, fnot identity,withthe systems f linguistic igns, .e., ConceptualArt.Most importantly,s early as 1961 in his Box with heSound of ts OwnMaking,Morris had rupturedboth. On the one hand, it dispenseswith theModernistquest formedium-specific urity s much as with ts sequel in thepositivistonviction fa purelyperceptual xperienceoperating nStella's visualtautologies nd theearlyphasesofMinimalism.And on theother,bycounteract-ingthesupremacy fthevisualwith hatof an auditory xperienceofequal ifnot

higher mportance,he renewedthe Duchampian quest for a nonretinal rt. InBoxwith heSound of ts OwnMaking, s much as in the subsequentworks,thecritiqueof the hegemonyof traditional ategoriesof the visual is enacted notonlyin the (acousticor tactile)disturbanceof the purity f perceptual experi-ence, but it is performed s well through literalist ct of denying he viewerpractically ll (at least traditionally efined)visual information.This strategyf a "perceptualwithdrawal" eads ineach oftheworksfromthe early 1960s to a differentnalysisof the constituent eaturesof the struc-turedobject and the modes of readingit generates. n I-Box,forexample,theviewer sconfrontedwith semioticpun (on thewords and eye)ust as much as15. RobertMorris,"Some Notes on the Phenomenologyof Making:The Search for the Moti-vated,"Artforum,ol. 9 (April 1970), p. 63.


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RobertMorris. -Box. 1962.

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WWWR:MNli:ililiiill- ~ ~ i ~ ~~"~~"~~eslei_::with structural leight f hand from he tactile theviewerhas to manipulatethe box physicallyo see the oftheartist) hrough he inguisticign the etterdefines he shape of theframing/displayevice: the "door" of thebox) to thevisualrepresentationthenudephotographic ortrait ftheartist) nd back. It isof course thisverytripartite ivisionof the aesthetic ignifier- its separationinto object, linguistic ign,and photographicreproduction-that we will en-counter in infinitevariations,didactically implified to operate as stunningtautologies) nd stylisticallyesigned to taketheplace ofpaintings)n Kosuth'sProto-Investigationsfter 1966.In DocumentStatementfAestheticWithdrawal),Morris takes the literalnegationof the visual evenfurther,n clarifyinghat fterDuchamp theready-made is not ust a neutralanalyticpropositionin themannerof an underlyingstatement uch as "this is a work of art"). Beginningwiththe readymade, heworkof arthad become the ultimate ubjectof a legaldefinitionnd the result finstitutional alidation. n the absenceofanyspecificallyisualqualities nd due


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to the manifestackofany artistic)manualcompetence s a criterion fdistinc-tion, all the traditional criteria of aesthetic judgment--of taste and ofconnoisseurship have been programmaticallyoided. The result f this sthatthe definition f the aestheticbecomes on the one hand a matter f linguisticconvention and on the other the functionof both a legal contractand aninstitutional iscourse a discourseof powerratherthantaste).This erosionworks, hen,not ust againstthehegemony fthevisual,butagainstthe possibility f any otheraspect of the aesthetic xperienceas beingautonomousand self-sufficient.hat theintroduction f legalistic anguageandan administrativestyleof the materialpresentation f the artistic bject couldeffect uch an erosion had of course been prefiguredn Duchamp's practice swell. n 1944 he had hired a notary o inscribe statement fauthenticityn his1919 L.H.O.O.Q., affirminghat". . . this s to certifyhat this s the original

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Robert orris. ntitledStatementfAestheticWithdrawal).963.


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'ready-made'L.H.O.O.Q. Paris 1919." Whatwaspossibly till pragmaticmaneu-ver withDuchamp (although certainly ne in line with thepleasure he took incontemplatinghevanishing asis forthe egitimate efinition fthe workofartin visual competenceand manual skillalone) would soon become one of theconstituent eaturesof subsequent developments n Conceptual Art. Most ob-viously perating n thecertificatesssuedbyPiero Manzonidefining ersonsorpartialpersonsas temporary r lifetimeworks of art (1960-61), this s to befoundat thesame time n Yves Klein's certificatesssigning ones of immaterialpictorial ensibilityo thevarious collectorswho acquired them.But this estheticof linguistic onventions nd legalistic rrangements otonly denies the validityof the traditional tudio aesthetic, t also cancels theaestheticofproduction nd consumptionwhich had stillgoverned Pop ArtandMinimalism.Just s themodernist ritique and ultimate rohibition) ffigurative epre-sentationhad become the increasingly ogmatic aw forpictorialproduction nthe first ecade of the twentieth entury, o Conceptual Art now instatedtheprohibition fanyand all visualitys the nescapableaesthetic ule forthe end ofthe twentieth entury.Justas the readymadehad negated not onlyfigurativerepresentation, uthenticity,nd authorshipwhile introducingrepetition ndtheseries i.e., the aw ofindustrial roduction) o replacethe studioaesthetic fthehandcrafted riginal,ConceptualArt came todisplaceeven that mageof themass-produced bject and its aestheticizedforms n Pop Art,replacingan aes-thetic f industrial roduction nd consumptionwith n aesthetic f administra-tiveand legal organization nd institutional alidation.

Edward Ruscha's BooksOne majorexampleof thesetendencies--acknowledgedbothbyDan Gra-ham as a major inspiration or his own "Homes for America" and by Kosuth,whose "Art afterPhilosophy"names him as a proto-Conceptual rtist-wouldbe theearlybook workof Edward Ruscha. Among thekey strategies f futureConceptual Art thatwere initiatedby Ruscha in 1963 were the following: ochose the vernacular (e.g., architecture) s referent;to deploy photographysystematicallys the representationalmedium; and to develop a new formofdistributione.g., the commercially roduced book as opposed to the tradition-allycrafted ivred'artiste.Typically, eference o architecturenanyformwhateverwouldhave beenunthinkable n the contextof American-type ormalism nd AbstractExpres-sionismorwithin heEuropean postwar estheticforthatmatter) ntil heearly1960s. The devotionto a private estheticofcontemplative xperience,with tsconcomitantbsenceofanysystematiceflectionfthe socialfunctions fartisticproductionand theirpotentialand actual publics,had, in fact,precluded anyexploration fthe nterdependence f architecturalnd artistic roduction, e it


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AsommmLft X, ..........VARIOUS

~~~~... ...?.... . . ....

SMALL ASo LINEFIRES STATsIONS

NINE REAL

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Edward Ruscha.Four Books. 1962-1966.

AndyWarhol.FromThirteenMostWantedMen.1964.

even inthe most uperficialnd trivial orms farchitecturalecor.16 It was notuntil theemergenceofPop Art n theearly1960s, in particular n thework ofBernd and Hilla Becher,Claes Oldenburg,and EdwardRuscha,that therefer-encestomonumentalculptureevenin tsnegation s theAnti-Monument)nd tovernacular rchitecture eintroducedevenifonlyby mplication) reflection npublic architecturalnd domestic) pace,thereby oregroundingheabsence ofa developed artistic eflection n theproblematic f thecontemporary ublics.InJanuary 963 (theyearofDuchamp'sfirst mericanretrospective,eldat thePasadena ArtMuseum),Ruscha,a relatively nknownLos Angelesartist,decidedtopublish bookentitledTwenty-Sixasoline tations. he book,modest16. It wouldbe worthwhileo explorethe fact hat rtists ikeArshileGorkyundertheimpact ftheWPA programwouldstillhavebeen concernedwith heaesthetics fmuralpaintingwhenhe wascommissionedodecorate theNewarkAirport uilding, nd that venPollock tinkeredwith he deaof an architectural imensionforhispaintings,wonderingwhetherthey ould be transformedntoarchitecturalanels.As iswellknown,MarkRothko's nvolvement ith heSeagramCorporation oproducea setof decorativepanelsfortheir orporateheadquarters nded in disaster, nd BarnettNewman'ssynagogueprojectwasabandoned as well. All oftheseexceptionswouldconfirmherulethat the postwaraesthetichad undergonethe most rigorousprivatizationnd a reversal of thereflection n the inextricableinkbetweenartistic roduction nd publicsocial experienceas theyhad marked the 1920s.


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informat nd production,was as removedfrom he tradition f theartist's ookas its conographywasopposedto every spectof the official merican rt ofthe1950s and early 60s: the legacyof AbstractExpressionism nd Color Fieldpainting.The book was, however,not so alien to the artistic houghtof theemerginggeneration,fone remembers hattheyearbefore an unknown rtistfromNew Yorkbythe nameofAndyWarholhad exhibited serial rrangementof thirty-twotenciledpaintingsdepictingCampbell Soup cans arranged likeobjectson shelves nthe FerusGallery.While both Warhol and Ruschaaccepteda notionofpublic experience hatwasinescapably ontained ntheconditions fconsumption, othartists ltered the mode ofproduction s well as theform fdistributionftheirwork uch that differentublicwaspotentiallyddressed.Ruscha's vernacular conography volved to the same extentas Warhol'shad from heDuchamp and Cage legacyof an aesthetic f "indifference,"ndfrom he commitmento an antihierarchicalrganization f a universally alidfacticity,perating s totalaffirmation.ndeed, randomsampling nd aleatorychoicefrom n infinityfpossibleobjects Ruscha's Twenty-Sixasoline tations,Warhol's Thirteen ost WantedMen)would soon become essentialstrategies fthe aesthetic f ConceptualArt:one thinks fAlighieroBoetti'sThe ThousandLongestRivers, f RobertBarry'sOne BillionDots,of On Kawara's OneMillion


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122 OCTOBER

Years, r,mostsignificantlyn thiscontext, fDoug Huebler's life-long roject,entitledVariablePiece: 70. This work claimsto documentphotographicallytheexistenceofeveryone live in orderto produce the most uthentic nd inclusiverepresentation f the human species that may be'assembled in thatmanner.Editionsof this workwillbe periodically ssued in a variety f topicalmodes:'100,000 people,' '1,000,000 people,' '10,000,000 people,' . . . etc." Or again,thereare theworksbyStanleyBrouwnor Hanne Darboven where n each casean arbitrary,bstractprinciple fpure quantification eplacestraditional rinci-ples of pictorial or sculptural organization and/or compositionalrelationalorder.In thesamemannerthat Ruscha'sbooks shifted heformal rganization ftherepresentation,he mode ofpresentationtself ecame transformed:nsteadof ifting hotographicorprint-derived)magery rommass-culturalources ndtransforminghese images into painting as Warhol and the Pop Artistshadpracticed t),Ruscha would nowdeploy photography irectly,n an appropriateprintingmedium.And itwas a particularlyaconictypeofphotography t that,one that xplicitlyituated tself s muchoutsideof all conventions fartphotog-raphy s outsideof thoseof the venerabletradition f documentary hotogra-phy, eastof all thatof "concerned" photography. his devotionto a deadpan,anonymous, mateurish pproach to photographicform orresponds xactlytoRuscha's iconographic hoice of thearchitectural anal. Thus at all three evels-iconography, representational orm,mode ofdistributionthe givenformsof artistic bject no longerseemed acceptable in theirtraditionallypecializedand privilegedpositions.As Victor Burgin put it withhindsight: One of thethingsConceptualArtattemptedwas thedismantling fthehierarchy fmediaaccording to whichpainting sculpturetrailing lightly ehind it) is assumedinherentlyuperiorto, mostnotably,photography.""7Accordingly,ven in 1965- 66, with he earliest tagesofConceptual prac-tices,we witnessthe emergence of diametrically pposed approaches:JosephKosuth's Proto-Investigationsn the one hand (accordingto their author con-ceived and produced in 1965);18and a work such as Dan Graham's Homes or17. Victor Burgin,"The Absence of Presence," in The End ofArtTheoryAtlanticHighlands,1986), p. 34.18. In thepreparation fthis ssay, have not been able to find single ource or documentthatwould confirmwith definite redibilityKosuth's claim thattheseworks of the Proto-Investigationswereactuallyproducedand existedphysicallyn 1965 or 1966, when he (at that timetwenty earsold) wasstill student t theSchool of VisualArts nNew York. Nor was Kosuth able toprovide anydocuments omake theclaims verifiable. ycontrast hese claimswereexplicitlyontestedbyall theartists interviewedwho knewKosuth at thattime,none of themremembering eeing any of theProto-InvestigationseforeFebruary1967, in the exhibitionNon-AnthropomorphicrtbyFour YoungArtists, rganized by Joseph Kosuth at the Lannis Gallery. The artistswithwhom I conductedinterviews ere RobertBarry,Mel Bochner,Dan Graham, nd Lawrence Weiner. am notnecessar-ilysuggesting hattheProto-Investigationsould not have been done byKosuth at theage oftwenty(after ll, Frank Stellahad paintedhis BlackPaintings t age twenty-three),r thatthe logical steps


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......................................-----------.......... .................................. . ...................11BAVIC1011AIXIAAW?Homesor B(,CDDAAAXAPMAIIAM)AACCJDACW)ACR8J)1XX'AAIM".'kbAAflBericaX',XvK)DB8ADWAOREarly0th-CenturyCO-DKIIANTVACORAossessableouse YA)AAB9(.'(.,ACNOAKIStoheuasi-DiscretefBAACCBCIAIACCellf66 DOMCCAAJ8k':"M.ADT)CCAABAICAADC4,13,lm1`w fariwg-a"11t?f:tWw-oll,wi"lle_!11 DCCbBAA. RAJANI ti;viallollolz-?i,,,hlf>Belloplai"*rdeft'Clly?-Ids. z-"IiV'RJ,.""'.4sl;KlardenChya.* 1 ftti;.;n;m'kv.4c,?;et"A?1,olania re"law"N!wu?a 0;;':f:ntonvvvlopikt,t?..If, . soloniaa islandar*Wl"hp mlo' 'i-q:';?.Iwdaiavenevilown ?oikkiilairow"ViddumliaO",alle? 'n- 'zli"'lltaimvlwiv6-,Islk":1 a,:l'sift?l n?toohn"illageowityork''1,e'4"'. 01I.-iisuid;, hoz?f atGreenillageineawn."The",qA( ;I" 'O?q'1u,tl '.&?..... h Riglaintliborblainview 'A"ih'-huqd;al'ife"i'-' h,,s?l'l-11,el'"hltleaswrovelandame,onbrt,,--,h Adaitalen.,!mn'6e,+,rikiand A'sig-i"%sli'r alidof,leelika"Ilainsle"Antal" -'lq'?mJ !u'" ,1, "'I'low-.f'-mtsunsetillordonlo"antwille -Oe??'f'!'jg"ef'?x aw'v.?ifjr,V??'n?" Mah. ""Ah'plf' ,aIlf il'.mwot\,aivld4A'1'.nn'i., t?ieir- ln-li'l"t"Urt'ilk"4?1o "W-l Mile 'kwii?-lia", to'w4!'pidudSloo:ste'?'f't I lk,1 Lal? I, Ihi.?fmlti.vimo-,0o,-4 ik"'.t Pm':"?it" 04,wbiw?;i" ::txj-vbq?I""t,J",;';Y" th"?A-'j-tall,I'i- -imr.tand'lw-dt .'thi!'(JObh,?t,i'nlI,,Wd-a?,tslf?-i,,AI'l"him",,n [I. ill,, f?_'O'awlI'.:JI?O?'- 11ON",wt,ul"?' lo'!O'Andlnu'Aws"' vL." . $ ii?' "'a"?R.mlll?shl'koapt?'Atft.mpfIMIXIw.his" s;i: ixmil"w, : ?' Thrw??,fp?mkiit,"t"' Moc-:;'t;- eowleOvll?il,M'd'i?wjia,"y"( 'i'f" nd'anohe'?Olalmj"'Oe,,%'-th,l,,:v-"il'a:d",pi'a'II,,g,.lihe?w firn"tnt'it,a" fa?";"'w-'o"WNm'44*3trtlJ.- 10A.a "Ix1-1. TheOMNAD6?-:i"slilzsiit a:Ktit: 11""l-, wi-lt'm'?VisifMw' 'fop(:;m;t"kf-'ar.: N.J.? lpht1??Ow:;:t?ti'i JwWi,?nw-ic1l, 1""'Vnr""" ?igltf:-1mo'?ll ji?ffxt?'-t'i'J,hl,-014 Vtll-;'Ne,hit'.-z,,(w- PiA"%".,.-4;1" "'A 'Al....."!a-lft"' ;1h'0t?fl m1",,t?:'I(Ao?vw?Ij?!onlamedI,Z'?IL?' Nk",11J?111':'111111"Ili1"?!f-dI, a" A,?i'ql;i"fJ" "a, I,ll,?l"+'"i' 'M


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124 OCTOBER

Bycontrast,Graham's work rgued for n analysis f visual)meaningthatdefinedsignsas both structurallyonstitutedwithin he relationsof language'ssystem nd groundedin the referent fsocial and political xperience.Further,Graham's dialecticalconceptionof visual representation olemicallycollapsedthedifference etweenthespacesofproduction nd those ofreproductionwhatSethSiegelaubwould, n 1969, callprimarynd secondarynformation).'9 ntic-ipatingthe work's actual modes of distribution nd receptionwithin ts verystructure fproduction,Homes orAmerica liminated he difference etweentheartistic onstruct nd its photographic) eproduction, hedifference etweenanexhibitionof art objects and the photographof its installation, he differencebetween the architecturalpace of thegallery nd thespace ofthecatalogueandthe artmagazine.

JosephKosuth'sTautologiesIn opposition othis,Kosuth wasarguing, n 1969, precisely or thecontin-uation and expansionofmodernism'spositivistegacy,and doing so with whatmusthave seemed to himat the timethe mostradicaland advanced tools ofthattradition:Wittgenstein'sogicalpositivismnd language philosophyhe emphati-cally ffirmed his ontinuity hen, nthe first artof"Art afterPhilosophy,"hestates, Certainly inguistic hilosophy an be considered theheir to empiricism. ."). Thus, even whileclaimingto displace the formalism f GreenbergandFried,he in factupdated modernism'sprojectof self-reflexiveness.or Kosuthstabilizedthe notionof a disinterested nd self-sufficientrtbysubjectingboth-the Wittgensteinianmodel of the language game as well as the Duchampianmodel ofthereadymade to thestricturesf a model ofmeaningthatoperatesin the modernist traditionof that paradox Michel Foucault has called mod-ernity's empirico-transcendental"hought.This is to say that n 1968 artisticproduction s still heresult, orKosuth,ofartisticntentions itconstitutestselfabove all in self-reflexivenesseven if t snow discursive ather hanperceptual,

epistemological atherthanessentialist).2019. "For many years it has been well knownthat more people are aware of an artist'sworkthrough1) theprintedmedia or (2) conversation hanbydirect onfrontation ith he art tself. orpainting nd sculpture,wherethe visualpresence-color, scale,size, location-is important o thework,the photographor verbalizationof thatworkis a bastardization f the art. But when artconcerns tselfwith hings otgermanetophysical resence, ts ntrinsiccommunicative) alue s notalteredbyitspresentationnprintedmedia. The use ofcataloguesand books to communicateanddisseminate) rt is the most neutralmeansto present he newart. The cataloguecan nowact as theprimarynformation ortheexhibition, s opposed to secondary nformationbout rt nmagazines,catalogues,etc. and in some cases the 'exhibition' can be the 'catalogue."' (Seth Siegelaub, "OnExhibitions nd the World at Large" [interviewwithCharles Harrison],Studio nternational,De-cember 1969].)20. This differentiations developed in Hal Foster'sexcellentdiscussion of theseparadigmaticdifferencess they mergefirstnMinimalism nhisessay"The Crux ofMinimalism,"n ndividuals(Los Angeles:The Museum of ContemporaryArt, 1986), p. 162-183.


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At the verymoment when the complementary ormations f Pop andMinimalArthad, forthefirst ime, ucceeded in criticizinghelegacyofAmeri-can-typeformalism nd its prohibitionof referentiality,hisproject is all themore astounding. The privilegingof the literal over the referential xis of(visual) language- as Greenberg'sformalist esthetichad entailed- had beencountered n Pop Artby a provocativedevotionto mass-culturalconography.Then, both Pop and MinimalArt had continuously mphasized the universalpresenceof industrialmeans ofreproduction s inescapable framing onditionsfor artisticmeans ofproduction,or, to put it differently,heyhad emphasizedthattheaesthetic f the studio had been irreversiblyeplacedbyan aestheticofproduction nd consumption.And finally, op and MinimalArt had exhumedthe repressedhistory f Duchamp (and Dadaism at large), phenomena equallyunacceptableto thereigning esthetic hought fthe late 1950s and early 60s.Kosuth'snarrowreadingof thereadymade sastonishing oryet notherreason.In 1969, he explicitly laimed that he had encountered the work of Duchampprimarily hroughthe mediation ofJohnsand Morris ratherthan throughanactual studyof Duchamp's writingsnd works.21As we have seen above, the first wo phases of Duchamp's receptionbyAmerican rtists rom heearly1950s (Johns nd Rauschenberg) o WarholandMorris n theearly1960s had graduallyopened up therangeofimplications fDuchamp's readymades.22t is therefore ll the morepuzzlingto see thatafter1968-what one could call the beginningof the third phase of Duchamp21. See note 5 above.22. As Rosalind Krauss has suggested, t leastJohns'sunderstanding t thatpointalreadytran-scended the earlierreadingof the readymadeas merely n aestheticof declaration nd intention:

If we consider thatStella'spaintingwas involvedearlyon, in the workofJohns, henJohns's nterpretationf Duchamp and the readymade-an interpretation iametric-ally opposed to thatof theConceptualist roupoutlined bove- has somerelevance nthisconnection.ForJohnsclearly aw thereadymade s pointing o thefact hatthereneed be no connectionbetween thefinal rtobject and thepsychologicalmatrixfromwhich t ssued,since nthe case of thereadymadethispossibilitysprecludedfrom hestart.The Fountain was not made (fabricated)by Duchamp, only selected by him.Therefore there is no way in which the urinal can "express" the artist. t is like asentencewhich s put into the world unsanctionedbythevoice of a speakerstandingbehind t.Because maker nd artist re evidently eparate, here s no wayfor heurinalto serveas an externalization f the state or statesofmind of theartist s he made it.And bynotfunctioningwithin hegrammarof the aestheticpersonality,he Fountaincan be seen as putting istancebetween tself nd the notion ofpersonality er se. Therelationship etweenJohns'sAmerican lag and hisreadingoftheFountain s ust this:thearthood of theFountain s not egitimized y tshaving ssuedstroke-by-strokeromtheprivatepsycheof theartist; ndeed itcould not. So it is like a manabsentmindedlyhummingnd beingdumbfoundedf sked ifhe had meantthat une or rather nother.That is a case in which t is not clear how thegrammarof intentionmight pply.RosalindKrauss,"Sense and Sensibility,"Artforum,ol. 12 (November 1973), pp. 43-52, n. 4.


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126 OCTOBER

reception the understanding f this model by Conceptual Artists tillfore-grounds ntentional eclarationovercontextualization. his holdstruenotonlyfor Kosuth's "Art afterPhilosophy,"butequallyforthe BritishArt& LanguageGroup,as, in the introduction o thefirst ssueofthe ournal in May 1969, theywrite:

To place an object in a contextwhere the attention f anyspectatorwillbe conditioned oward theexpectancy frecognizing rtobjects.Forexampleplacingwhatup to thenhad been an objectof alien visualcharacteristicso thoseexpectedwithin he framework f an art am-bience, or by virtueof the artistdeclaringthe object to be an artobject whetheror not it was in an art ambience. Using these tech-niqueswhatappeared to be entirely ewmorphologieswere held outto qualifyfor the statusof themembersof the class "art objects."For example Duchamp's "Readymades" and Rauschenberg's"Portraitof Iris Clert."23A few months ater Kosuth based his argumentfor the developmentofConceptualArton ust such a restrictedreadingofDuchamp. For in itslimitingviewof thehistorynd the typology f Duchamp's oeuvre, Kosuth'sargument-like thatof Art& Language- focusesexclusively n the "unassistedready-mades." Thereby early Conceptual theorynot only leaves out Duchamp'spainterlywork butavoids suchan eminently rucialworkas theThree tandardStoppages1913), not to mentionTheLargeGlass 1915-23) or the Etantsdonne(1946 - 66) or the 1943 Boite nvalise. Butwhat sworse s thateven thereadingoftheunassisted eadymades s itselfextremely arrow, educing hereadymademodel in factmerely o thatofan analyticalproposition.Typically,both Art&Language and Kosuth's"Art afterPhilosophy"refer o RobertRauschenberg'snotorious xampleofspeech-act esthetics"This is a portrait f risClert f sayso") based on the rather imitedunderstanding f the readymadeas an act ofwillful rtistic eclaration.This understanding,ypical f the early 1950s, con-tinues in Judd's famous lapidarynorm (and patentlynonsensicalstatement),quoted a little ater n Kosuth's text:"ifsomeonesays t'sart,then t sart ... ."In 1969, Art& Language and Kosuth shared in foregroundinghe "ana-lyticproposition" nherent n each readymade,namelythe statement this is aworkofart," over and above all otheraspects mpliedbythereadymademodel(its structuralogic, its features s an industrially roduced object of use andconsumption,tsseriality,nd thedependence of itsmeaningon context).Andmost importantly,ccording to Kosuth, thismeans that artisticpropositionsconstitutethemselves n the negation of all referentiality,e it that of thehistorical ontextof the (artistic) ignor thatof itssocial function nd use:

23. Introduction,Art& Language,vol. 1, no. 1 (May 1969), p. 5.


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\il

~: 44:

:?:::2: ?:

Works fart reanalytic ropositions.hat s, fviewedwithinheircontext-as-art,hey rovideno informationhat-so-everboutanymatterffact.Awork f rt sa tautologynthat t sa presentationfthe rtist'sntention,hat s,he issayinghat hat articular ork fart sart,whichmeans,sa definitionf rt.Thus, hat t sart s trueprioriwhichswhat uddmeanswhenhestateshat if omeone allsitart, t's rt").24Or, a little ater n the sameyear,he wrote n The Sixthnvestigation969Proposition4 (a text hathasmysteriouslyanished rom hecollection fhiswritings):Ifoneconsidershat heformsrttakes s being rt's anguage necan realize hen hat work f rt sa kind fpropositionresentedwithinhe ontext f rt sa commentn art.Ananalysisfproposi-

24. Joseph Kosuth, "Art after Philosophy,"Studio International, os. 915-917 (October-December 1969). Quoted here fromJosephKosuth,TheMaking fMeaning,p. 155.

Josephosuth. iveFives toDonaldJudd). 965 ).


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tion types howsart "works" as analyticpropositions.Works of artthattry o tell us something bout theworld are bound to failThe absence of reality n art is exactly rt's reality.25Kosuth'sprogrammaticfforts o reinstate law ofdiscursive elf-reflexive-ness in the guise of a critiqueof Greenberg'sand Fried's visual and formalself-reflexivenessre all the moreastonishing ince a considerablepartof "ArtafterPhilosophy" s dedicated to the elaborateconstruction f a genealogyforConceptualArt, nand of tself historical roject e.g., "All art afterDuchamp]is conceptual[in nature]because art existsonlyconceptually").This verycon-struction f a lineage alreadycontextualizes nd historicizes, f course, n "tell-

ing us somethingabout the world"-of art, at least; that is, it unwittinglyoperates like a synthetic roposition even ifonlywithin he conventionsof aparticular anguagesystem)nd therefore enies both thepurity nd thepossibil-ityof an autonomous artistic roductionthat would function,within rt's ownlanguage-system,s mereanalyticproposition.Perhapsone might ry o argue that, n fact,Kosuth's renewed cultof thetautology rings heSymbolist rojectto fruition. t mightbe said,forexample,thatthisrenewal is the logicalextensionof Symbolism's xclusive concern withtheconditions nd thetheorization f art's own modes ofconception nd read-ing. Such an argument,however,would stillnotallayquestionsconcerning healteredhistorical rameworkwithinwhichsuch a cultmustfind ts determina-tion.Even withintsSymbolist rigins, he modernist heology f art wasalreadygrippedbya polarized opposition.For a religiousvenerationof self-referentialplasticform s thepurenegationofrationalistnd empiricist hought an simul-taneouslybe read as nothing therthan the inscriptionnd instrumentalizationofprecisely hat order even or particularlyn itsnegation within he realmof theaesthetic tselfthealmost mmediate nd universal pplicationofSymbol-ism for the cosmos of late nineteenth-centuryommodityproductionwouldattestto this).This dialectic ame toclaim tshistorical ights ll themoreforcefullynthecontemporary,ostwar ituation. or giventhe conditions fa rapidly ccelerat-ingfusion f theculture ndustrywith he last bastions f an autonomoussphereofhigh rt,self-reflexivenessncreasinglyand inevitably)ame to shift long theborderlinebetween logical positivism nd the advertisement ampaign. Andfurther,herights nd rationaleofa newly stablishedpostwarmiddleclass,onewhichcame fullynto tsown in the 1960s, could assumetheir esthetic dentityin theverymodelofthetautology nd its ccompanying esthetic f administra-tion. For this aesthetic dentity s structuredmuch the way thisclass's socialidentitys,namely, s one ofmerely dministeringabor and production ratherthanproducing)and of the distribution f commodities.This class,havingbe-25. JosephKosuth,The Sixthnvestigation969 Proposition4.


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come firmlystablished s the mostcommon and powerful ocialclass ofpostwarsociety, s the one which,as H. G. Helms wrote in his book on Max Stirner,"deprives tself oluntarilyf therights o intervenewithin hepoliticaldecision-making process in order to arrange itself more efficiently ith the existingpoliticalconditions."26This aesthetic of the newlyestablishedpower of administration ound itsfirst ullydeveloped literary oice in a phenomenonlike the nouveauromanofRobbe-Grillet.t was no accident that ucha profoundly ositivistiterary rojectwould thenserve, n the Americancontext, s a pointofdepartureforConcep-tual Art. But,paradoxically, twas at thisvery ame historicalmoment that thesocial functions f the tautologicalprinciplefound their most lucid analysis,through critical xamination aunched in France.In the early writing f Roland Barthes one finds, imultaneouslywith thenouveauroman, discussionof the tautological:

Tautologie. es, I know, t's an uglyword. But so is thething.Tauto-logy s the verbal device which onsistsndefiningikeby ike "Dramais drama"). . . . One takesrefuge n tautology s one does infear,oranger, or sadness,when one is at a loss for an explanation. . . . Intautology, here is a double murder: one killsrationality ecause itresists ne; one kills anguage because it betrays ne. . . . Now anyrefusal f language is a death. Tautologycreates a dead, a motionlessworld.27Ten years ater, t the same momentthat Kosuth was discovering t as thecentral estheticprojectof hisera, thephenomenonof thetautologicalwasonceagain opened to examination n France. Butnow,rather hanbeingdiscussed sa linguisticnd rhetorical orm, t wasanalyzedas a generalsocial effect: s boththe inescapablereflexof behaviorand, once the requirements f the advancedcultureindustryi.e., advertisement nd media) have been put in place in theformation f spectacle culture,a universalcondition of experience.What stillremains pen fordiscussion, fcourse, sthe extent o whichConceptualArt of acertaintype hared theseconditions, r even enacted and implemented hem nthe sphereof theaesthetic-accounting, perhaps,for tssubsequentproximityand successwithin worldof advertisement trategists-or, alternatively,heextentto which t merely nscribed tself nto the inescapable logic of a totallyadministeredworld, s Adorno's notoriousterm dentifiedt. Thus GuyDebordnoted in 1967:The basicallytautologicalcharacter of the spectacle flowsfromthesimplefact that its means are simultaneouslyts ends. It is the sun

26. Hans G. Helms,Die Ideologiederanonymen esellschaftCologne, 1968), p. 3.27. Roland Barthes,Mythologies,p. 152- 53.


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130 OCTOBER

whichnever sets over the empireof modernpassivity. t coverstheentiresurfaceof the worldand bathesendlessly n its own glory.28

A Tale ofMany SquaresThe visual forms hatcorrespondmostaccurately o the linguistic ormofthetautology re thesquare and its tereometric otation, hecube. Not surpris-ingly, hese two forms roliferatedn thepainterlynd sculptural roductionoftheearly- omid-1960s.This was the momentwhen a rigorous elf-reflexivenesswasbent on examining he traditional oundariesof modernist culptural bjectsto the same extent that a phenomenologicalreflection f viewingspace was

insistant n reincorporating rchitecturalparameters into the conception ofpainting nd sculpture.So thoroughly id the square and the cube permeate the vocabularyofMinimalist culpture hat n 1967 Lucy Lippard published questionnaire nves-tigating he role of theseforms,which he had circulated mongmany rtists.nhisresponseto thequestionnaire,Donald Judd, n one of hismany attempts odetachthemorphology f Minimalism rom imilar nvestigationsf thehistori-cal avant-garde n the earlierpartof the twentiethentury, isplayedtheagres-sive dimensionoftautological hought disguisedas pragmatism,s was usual inhis case) by simplydenyingthatany historicalmeaning could be inherent ngeometricor stereometric orms:I don't think thereis anything pecial about squares, whichI don'tuse, or cubes. They certainlydon't have any intrinsicmeaning orsuperiority.One thing though,cubes are a lot easier to make thanspheres. The main virtue of geometricshapes is that theyare notorganic,as all art otherwise s. A formthat'sneithergeometricnororganicwould be a great discovery.29

As the centralform of visual self-reflexiveness,he square abolishes thetraditional patialparameters f verticalitynd horizontality,hereby ancelingthemetaphysicsfspace and its conventions freading. t is in thiswaythatthesquare (beginningwithMalevich's 1915 BlackSquare) incessantly ointsto itself:28. GuyDebord, TheSocietyfthe pectacleDetroit:Black& Red, 1970), n. p., section13. Firstpublished,Paris, 1967.29. DonaldJudd, nLucyLippard,"Homage totheSquare," Art n AmericaJuly-August,1967),pp. 50-57. How pervasivethe square actuallywas in the art of the early- o mid-1960sis all tooobvious:theworkfrom he ate 50s, such as paintings yReinhardt nd Ryman nd a largenumberof sculptures romthe early 1960s onwards Andre, LeWitt,and Judd),deployedthe tautologicalformn endlessvariations. aradoxically ven Kosuth's work from hemid-1960s- whileemphasiz-ing itsdeparturefrompainting'straditional bject status nd visual/formal esign continues todisplay he definitionsf words on large,black,canvassquares.Bycontrast ne onlyhas to think fJasperJohns'sor BarnettNewman'swork s immediatepredecessors fthatgeneration orecognizehow infrequent,f not altogether bsent,the square was at that moment.


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Robert arry.Painting n FourParts. 1967. * U

i~iiiii~iII Uii~iii

as spatial perimeter, s plane, as surface, nd, functioning imultaneously,ssupport.But,withthevery uccess of this self-referentialesture,marking heform out as purelypictorial, he square paintingparadoxicallybut inevitablyassumes he character fa relief/objectituated nactualspace. It therebynvitesa viewing/readingfspatialcontingencynd architecturalmbeddedness,nsist-ingon the imminent nd irreversible ransition rompainting o sculpture.This transitionwas performedn theproto-Conceptualrt of theearly- omid-1960s in a fairly elimitednumberof specificpictorialoperations. t oc-curred,first fall, through heemphasis n painting's pacity. he object-statusof thepainterly tructure ould be underscoredby unifyingnd homogenizingitssurface hroughmonochromy,erializedtexture, nd gridded compositionalstructure; r it could be emphasized by literally ealing a painting's spatialtransparency,ysimply ltering ts material upport: hiftingt from anvastounstretched abric r metal.This typeofinvestigation asdeveloped systemati-cally,forexample, in the proto-Conceptual aintings f Robert Ryman,whoemployed ll oftheseoptions eparately r invarying ombinationsntheearly-tomid-i1960s;r,after1965, inthepaintings fRobertBarry,Daniel Buren, ndNiele Toroni.Secondly- and in a direct nversion nd countermovement o the first-object-statusould be achievedbyemphasizing,na literalistmanner,painting'stransparency.his entailed establishing dialecticbetween pictorialsurface,frame, nd architecturalupportbyeither literalopening up ofthepainterlysupport, s in Sol LeWitt'searlyStructures,r bythe nsertion ftranslucentrtransparent urfaces nto the conventionalframe of viewing, s in Ryman'sfiberglass aintings, uren'searly nylonpaintings, r Michael Asher's and Ger-


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Robert orris. ourMirroredubes. 1965.

hard Richter'sglass panes in metalframes, oth emergingbetween 1965 and1967. Or, as intheearlyworkofRobertBarrysuchas hisPaintingn FourParts,1967, in the FER-Collection),where the square, monochrome, anvas objectsnowseemed to assumethe role of mere architectural emarcation.Functioningas decenteredpainterly bjects,theydelimit he external rchitecturalpace inamanner nalogous to the serial or centralcomposition f earlierMinimalworkthatstilldefined nternalpictorial r sculptural pace. Or, as in Barry's quarecanvas (1967), whichis to be placed at the exact centerof the architecturalsupportwall,a work s conceived as programmaticallyhiftinghereadingof itfrom centered,unified, ictorial bjectto an experienceofarchitecturalon-tingence, nd as thereby ncorporatinghesupplementarynd overdeterminingstrategies f curatorialplacement nd conventions f installationtraditionallydisavowed n painting nd sculpture) nto the conceptionf the work tself.And thirdly--andmostoften--thistransitions performedn the "sim-ple" rotationof the square, as originally vident n Naum Gabo's famousdia-gramfrom1937 where a volumetricnd a stereometric ube are uxtaposed inorderto clarifyhe nherent ontinuityetweenplanar,stereometric,nd volu-metricforms.This rotationgenerated cubic structures s diverse as HansHaacke's Condensation ube (1963-65), Robert Morris's Four MirroredCubes(1965), or LarryBell's simultaneouslyroducedMineralCoatedGlassCubes, nd:.::i::::::':::::::-'::::l:i::::i:-:::?::-:~:'::"~~:::: :-

:::::::::::::`::::::::::::i ::?:::::::::.::::::::::~:_I::::-::1::::--::I-::;-::::ii::i::::.: ::::::::::::::::::':;:~:-~xi-::;:-::::::;- i:_;:i:::;i::::,::::::-::j::::::: I::::il~::3i:i::-::-:::- -----S--i:---::--'i~~'~ril:~iiiiii-iiiilil~::,_:::i:_:.:::::_::?_:: ?:-::::: ~::::i::1~ --:-- - :::::i::::-?:l~"':~-:~--'I::-:::--: - : :::::::i;~~~zii:iii:ii:~i,-aiiii:::-;~~i~;:::: ?~ ::~s:iiiii::i:iii-:--::- ::?`?:iii':ii'~iiiii:iiii;iiii~aiili: :::::_::i~i- ':':i:ii:::: ::':::_~::::::;-:~:~::.;::i;~.l~iiiiiii:i~i::i:::i~:::iii-:---_i ::-:-:-;::-:i::::::_:::-:::::::-::::::::-:::i~::::-:

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Hans Haacke.Condensationube.1963-65.

Sol LeWitt'sWall-Floor iece Three quares),1966. All of these beyond sharingthe obvious morphology f the cube) engage in the dialecticof opacityandtransparencyor in the synthesis f that dialectic in mirror-reflections inMorris'sMirrored ubes r LarryBell's aestheticized ariations fthetheme).Atthe sametimethatthey ngage inthe dialectic fframe nd surface, nd thatofobjectand architecturalontainer, heyhavedisplacedtraditional igure-groundrelationships.The deployment fanyor all of thesestrategiesor,as inmostcases,theirvarying ombination)nthecontext f Minimal nd post-Minimalrt, .e.,proto-conceptualpainting nd sculpture, esulted na rangeofhybrid bjects.Theynolongerqualifiedforeitherofthe traditional tudiocategoriesnorcould theybeidentified s relief or architectural ecoration-the compromise ermstradi-tionallyused to bridge the gap betweenthese categories. n thissense, theseobjects demarcatedanotherspectrumof departurestowardsConceptual Art.Not onlydid theydestabilize heboundariesof thetraditionalrtistic ategoriesofstudioproduction, yerodingthemwithmodes of ndustrial roductionnthemannerof Minimalism, ut theywent furthern theircriticalrevisionof thediscourseof the studio versus the discourse of production/consumption.yultimately ismantling othalong withthe conventions f visualitynherentnthem, heyfirmlystablished n aesthetic f administration.IIIWN

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134 OCTOBER

The diversity f theseprotoconceptualobjectswould at first uggestthattheir ctual aesthetic perationsdiffer o profoundlyhat comparative eading,operatingmerelyon thegroundsof their pparent analogous formal nd mor-phologicalorganization the visualtoposofthesquare would be illegitimate.Arthistory as accordingly xcluded Haacke's Condensation ube,forexample,fromany affiliationwithMinimal Art. Yet all of these artistsdefine artisticproduction nd receptionby themid-1960sas reaching beyondthe traditionalthresholds fvisualityboth nterms fthe materials nd productionproceduresof the studio and those of industrialproduction), nd it is on the basis of thisparallelthattheirworkcan be understood o be linkedbeyonda merestructuralor morphological nalogy.The proto-conceptualworksof themid-1960srede-fineaestheticexperience,indeed, as a multiplicityf nonspecializedmodes ofobject- nd language-experience.Accordingto thereadingtheseobjects gener-ate,aesthetic xperience as an individual nd social investment fobjectswithmeaning-is constituted y linguistics well as byspecularconventions, ytheinstitutional etermination f the object's status as much as by the readingcompetenceof the spectator.Withinthis shared conception,whatgoes on to distinguish hese objectsfrom each other is the emphasiseach one places on differentspects of thatdeconstruction f the traditional onceptsof visuality.Morris'sMirrored ubes,forexample (once again in an almost literal executionof a proposal foundinDuchamp'sGreen ox), ituate hespectatornthe suture f the mirror eflection:that nterface etweensculptural bject and architectural ontainerwherenei-ther lement an acquirea position fpriorityr dominance nthe triadbetweenspectator, culpturalobject, and architectural pace. And in so far as theworkacts simultaneouslyo inscribe phenomenologicalmodel of experienceinto atraditionalmodel ofpurelyvisualspecularitynd to displace t, tsprimary ocusremainsthe sculptural bject and itsvisualapperception.By contrast,Haacke's Condensation ube-while clearlysufferingromanow even more rigorously nforced scientistic eductivism nd the legacy ofmodernism's mpiricalpositivism movesawayfrom specularrelationship otheobject altogether, stablishingnstead bio-physicalystems a linkbetweenviewer, culptural bject,and architecturalontainer. f Morris hiftshe viewerfrom modeofcontemplativepecularitynto phenomenological oopofbodilymovementand perceptualreflection,Haacke replaces the once revolutionaryconcept of an activating "tactility" n the viewingexperience by a move tobracket hephenomenologicalwithin hedeterminacy f"system."For hisworknow suspendsMorris'stactile"viewing"within science-based yntagmin thisparticularcase thatof the processof condensationand evaporation nside thecube brought bout bytemperature hangesdue to thefrequency fspectatorsin thegallery).And finally,we should consider what s possibly he last credible transfor-mation of thesquare, at theheightofConceptualArt n 1968, in two worksby


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jiiiiiiiiii iii'iiiii-i-iiiil::i~j::::-:ii::':::i-.......::...iiiiiiii~iii_: -i:-!iIi:::?:I:i::-i-lijiiil-ilii-:i:i jii:--;iii-iii'_?

i1::::::?_:::?:::::::::: :???::??:!i~~i::-:.-_:::::_i::-i:iii:i:_r::i:::::::::: : :

LawrenceWeiner,respectivelyntitledASquareRemovalfromRug n Use nd A36" X 36" Removal o theLathing rSupportWall ofPlasterorWallboard romWall bothpublishedor "reproduced" inStatements,968), inwhich hespecificparadigmaticchanges Conceptual Art initiateswithregard to the legacy ofreductivist ormalism re clearlyevident. Both interventions whilemaintain-ingtheir tructural nd morphologicalinkswithformal raditions y respectingclassicalgeometry s theirdefinition t the levelof shape--inscribe themselvesin thesupport urfaces f the institutionnd/or the homewhichthattraditionhad alwaysdisavowed. The carpet presumably orsculpture) nd the wall (forpainting),which dealist aesthetics lwaysdeclares as mere "supplements," reforegroundedhere notonly s partsoftheirmaterialbasis but as theinevitablefuture ocationof thework.Thus the structure,ocation, nd materials f theintervention,t theverymoment ftheir onception, re completely eterminedbytheirfuture estination.Whileneither urface s explicitlypecifiedn termsof its institutionalontext,thisambiguity f dislocationgeneratestwoopposi-tional,yetmutually omplementaryeadings.On the one hand, tdissipates hetraditional xpectation fencounteringhe workofartonly na "specialized"or"qualified" ocation both"wall" and "carpet" could be either hoseof thehomeor the museum, or, for thatmatter, ould just as well be foundin any otherlocation such as an office, orexample). On the other,neitherone of thesesurfaces ould ever be consideredto be independentfrom ts nstitutionaloca-tion,since thephysical nscriptionnto each particular urfaceinevitably ener-ates contextualreadings dependent upon the institutionalonventions nd theparticularuse of those surfaces n place.

Lawrence einer. 36" x 36" SquareRemoval otheWallboardrLathing rom Wall. 1968.


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136 OCTOBER

Transcendingthe literalist r perceptualprecisionwithwhichBarryandRymanhadpreviously onnectedtheirpainterly bjectsto thetraditionalwallsofdisplay, n order to make theirphysical nd perceptual nterdependencemani-fest,Weiner's twosquaresare nowphysicallyntegratedwithboth hesesupportsurfaces nd their nstitutional efinition. urther, ince the work's inscriptionparadoxically mplies hephysicaldisplacement f thesupport urface, tengen-dersan experienceofperceptualwithdrawal s well. And ust as the worknegatesthe specularity f the traditional rtistic bject by literallywithdrawing atherthan adding visual data in the construct, o thisact of perceptualwithdrawaloperatesat the sametime s a physical and symbolic)nterventionnthe nstitu-tional power and propertyrelations underlyingthe supposed neutralityof"mere" devices ofpresentation. he installationnd/or acquisitionofeitheroftheseworksrequires that the futureowner accept an instance of physicalre-moval/withdrawal/interruptionn both the level of institutionalrder and onthatofprivateownership.It was only logical that,on the occasion of Seth Siegelaub's firstmajorexhibitionof ConceptualArt,the show entitledJanuary5-31, 1969, LawrenceWeiner would have presenteda formulathat then functioned s the matrixunderlying ll his subsequent propositions. pecifically ddressingthe relationswithinwhich the work of art is constituted s an open, structural,yntagmaticformula, hismatrix tatement efines heparameters f a workof artas those ofthe conditionsof authorship nd production, nd their nterdependencewiththoseofownership nd use (and not east ofall,at itsownpropositionalevel, s alinguisticefinitionontingent pon and determinedbyall oftheseparametersntheircontinuously arying nd changingconstellations:With elation o thevariousmanners fuse:1. The artistmay onstructhepiece2. Thepiece maybefabricated3. Thepieceneed notto be builtEachbeing qual and consistent ith he ntentf he rtist he ecisions to

condition estswith hereceiverpontheoccasion freceivershipWhatbeginsto be put in playhere, then, s a critiquethatoperatesat thelevel of the aesthetic"institution." t is a recognition hat materials nd proce-dures,surfaces nd textures,ocations nd placement re notonly sculptural rpainterlymatterto be dealt with n terms of a phenomenologyof visual andcognitive xperienceor in terms fa structuralnalysis fthesign as mostof theMinimalist nd post-Minimalistrtists ad stillbelieved),but thatthey re alwaysalready nscribedwithin he conventions f languageand therebywithin nstitu-tionalpowerand ideologicaland economic nvestment. owever, f, nWeiner'sand Barry'sworkof the late 1960s, thisrecognition till eemsmerely atent, twas to become manifest eryrapidly n thework ofEuropean artists f the samegeneration, n particular hatof Marcel Broodthaers,Daniel Buren, and Hans


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Haacke after1966. In fact n institutionalritiquebecamethe central ocus fallthree rtists' ssaults n the falseneutralityfvision hatprovides heunderlyingrationaleforthoseinstitutions.In 1965, Buren-like hisAmericanpeers--took off rom critical nves-tigation fMinimalism.His early understanding fthe work ofFlavin,Ryman,and Stella rapidlyenabled him to develop positionsfrom within a strictlypainterlynalysis hat soon led to a reversal f painterly/sculpturalonceptsofvisuality ltogether.Burenwasengagedon the one hand with critical eview fthe legacyofadvanced modernistand postwarAmerican)painting nd on theother n an analysis fDuchamp's legacy,whichhe viewedcriticallys theutterlyunacceptablenegationofpainting.This particular ersionofreading Duchampand the readymadeas acts of petit-bourgeoisnarchistradicality while notnecessarily omplete and accurate allowed Buren to construct successfulcritiqueof both: modernistpainting nd Duchamp's readymadeas itsradicalhistoricalOther. In his writings nd his interventions rom 1967 onwards,throughhis critiqueof the specularorder of painting nd of the institutional

i-ii-i-~ :ii~:ii:ii-iiiili:iiii::?-i?-i:iii-i:iiii:iEii$B :::::''';,i-i~::::-:::::::::-:i:::::--:9:i::-:i,-::'%:-::::::i~.~k~$P:l:':~::i--~:i-jlB:,:

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Daniel Buren. nstallation t theGuggenheimnternationalxhibition.1971.


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Buren,Mosset, armentier,oroni.Manifestationumber our,September1967, Fifth iennaledeParis,Musied'artmoderne e la VilledeParis.

framework eterminingt, Buren singularly ucceeded in displacingboth heparadigmsofpainting nd thatof the readymade even twenty ears ater thiscritiquemakesthenaive continuation fobject production n theDuchampianveinofthereadymademodel appear utterlyrrelevant).From the perspective f the present, t seems easier to see thatBuren'sassaulton Duchamp, especially n his crucial 1969 essayLimites ritiques,wasprimarily irectedat the conventions f Duchamp receptionperativeand pre-dominantthroughout he late 1950s and early 60s, rather than at the actualimplicationsfDuchamp'smodel tself. uren'scentral hesiswas that hefallacyof Duchamp's readymadewas to obscure the very nstitutionalnd discursiveframing onditionsthat allowed the readymade to generate its shifts n theassignment fmeaning nd theexperienceof theobject in thefirstplace. Yet,one could ust as wellargue,as MarcelBroodthaerswould in fact uggest nhiscatalogueof the exhibitionTheEaglefrom heOligoceneoToday nDfisseldorfn1972, that hecontextual efinition nd syntagmaticonstruction f the workofart had obviouslybeen initiatedbyDuchamp's readymademodel first f all.In his systematicnalysisof the constitutinglementsof the discourseofpainting, uren came to investigatell theparameters fartistic roduction ndreception an analysisthat, ncidentally,was similarto the one performedbyLawrence Weiner in arriving t his own "matrix" formula).DepartingfromMinimalism'sespeciallyRyman's nd Flavin's) iteralist ismembermentfpaint-ing,Buren at first ransformedhepictorial ntoyetanothermodel of opacityand objecthood. (This was accomplished by physicallyweaving figureand


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ground togetherin the "found" awning material,by makingthe "grid" ofverticalparallel stripeshis eternallyrepeated "tool," and by mechanically-almost uperstitiouslyr ritualistically,ne could saywithhindsightapplying acoat of whitepaint to the outer bands of the grid in order to distinguish hepictorialobject from readymade.)At the same time that the canvas had beenremovedfrom ts traditional tretcherupportto become a physical loth-object(reminiscent fGreenberg'snotorious"tacked up canvas [which] lreadyexistsas a picture"),this trategynBuren'sarsenalfound ts ogical counterpartntheplacementof the stretchedanvas leaningas an object against supportwall andfloor.This shifing fsupport urfaces nd proceduresofproduction ed to a widerangeofforms fdistributionwithinBuren'swork:fromunstretched anvas toanonymouslymailed sheets of printedstripedpaper; frompages in books tobillboards. n the same way,his displacementof the traditional ites of artisticintervention nd of readingresulted n a multiplicityf locationsand forms fdisplay hatcontinuously layedon thedialecticof nterior nd exterior, herebyoscillatingwithin hecontradictions fsculpture nd painting nd foregroundingall those hidden and manifestframingdevices that structureboth traditionswithin he discourse of the museumand the studio.Furthermore, nacting the principlesof the Situationist ritique of thebourgeoisdivision of creativityccordingto the rules of the divisionof labor,Buren,OlivierMosset,MichelParmentier,nd Niele Toroni publicly erformed(on variousoccasions between 1966 and 1968) a demolitionof the traditionalseparationbetweenartists nd audience, witheach giventheirrespectiveroles.Not only did theyclaim that each of their artistic dioms be considered asabsolutelyequivalent and interchangeable,but also thatanonymousaudienceproductionofthesepictorial ignswouldbe equivalentto thoseproducedbytheartists hemselves.With its starkreproductionsof mug shots of the four artiststaken inphotomats,the posterfortheirfourthmanifestationt the 1967 Biennale deParis nadvertentlyoints oanothermajorsource ofcontemporary hallenges othe notionofartisticauthorship inkedwith provocation o the "audience" toparticipate: heaesthetic fanonymitys practiced nAndyWarhol's "Factory"and itsmechanical photographic)proceduresof production."The critical nterventions f the four into an establishedbut outmodedcultural pparatus representedbysuchvenerableand importantnstitutionsstheSalon de laJeunePeintureor theBiennalede Paris) mmediately rought utin the open at least one major paradox of all conceptualpractices a paradox,30. Michel Claura, at the time the criticactivelypromoting wareness of the affiliatedrtistsBuren,Mosset,Parmentier,nd Toroni,hasconfirmedn a recent onversation hat hereference oWarhol, in particular o his series TheThirteenMostWantedMen,whichhad been exhibited t theIleana Sonnabend Gallery n 1967, was quite a consciousdecision.


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incidentally,whichhad made up the singlemostoriginalcontribution f YvesKlein's worktenyearsbefore).This was that the critical nnihilation fculturalconventions tselfmmediatelycquires the conditionsofthe spectacle,that theinsistence n artistic nonymitynd the demolitionof authorshipproduces in-stantbrandnames and identifiable roducts, nd that the campaignto critiqueconventions f visualitywithtextual nterventions, illboardsigns,anonymoushandouts, nd pamphlets nevitablyndsbyfollowing hepreestablishedmecha-nismsof advertising nd marketing ampaigns.All of the works mentionedcoincide, however, n theirrigorousredefini-tionofrelationships etween udience,object,and author. And all are concertedin theattempt o replace a traditional, ierarchicalmodel ofprivileged xperi-ence based on authorialskills nd acquired competenceofreceptionbya struc-tural relationshipof absolute equivalents that would dismantleboth sides oftheequation:the hieratic osition fthe unified rtistic bject ust as muchas theprivileged osition fthe author. n an early ssay published, ncidentally,nthesame 1967 issueofAspenMagazine dedicatedby tseditorBrianO'Doherty toSt6phaneMallarm --in which the first nglishtranslation f Roland Barthes's"The Death oftheAuthor"appeared), Sol LeWitt aid out theseconcernsforprogrammatic edistributionf author/artist unctionswith stonishing larity,presentinghembymeansofthe rather urprisingmetaphor fa performance fdailybureaucratic asks:The aim of theartistwould be to giveviewers nformation. . . Hewould followhis predeterminedpremiseto its conclusionavoidingsubjectivity.hance,tasteor unconsciously ememberedformswouldplay no part in the outcome. The serial artistdoes not attempttoproducea beautiful rmysteriousbjectbutfunctionsmerelys a clerkcataloguingheresults fhispremiseitalics dded).31Inevitably hequestionariseshow suchrestrictiveefinitions f the artist sa cataloguing lerkcan be reconciledwith he subversive nd radical mplications

of ConceptualArt.And thisquestionmustsimultaneously e posed within hespecifichistoricalcontextin which the legacy of an historicalavant-garde--Constructivismnd Productivism-had only recently een reclaimed.How, wemightask, can these practicesbe aligned with that historicalproductionthatartists ikeHenry Flynt, ol LeWitt,and George Maciunas had rediscovered, nthe early 60s, primarily hroughthe publicationof Camilla Gray's TheGreatExperiment:ussianArt 1863-1922.32 This question s ofparticular mportancesincemanyof the formal trategies fearlyConceptualArtappear at first lance31. Sol LeWitt, Serial Project#1,1966," AspenMagazine,nos. 5-6, ed. BrianO'Doherty,1967,n. p.32. The importanceof thispublication n 1962 was mentioned to me by severalof the artistsinterviewed uringthepreparationof thisessay.


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to be as close to thepracticesnd procedures f the Constructivist/Productivistavant-garde s Minimalsculpturehad appeared to be dependent upon itsmate-rials and morphologies.The profoundly topian and nowunimaginably aive)natureoftheclaimsassociatedwithConceptualArt at the end of the 1960s were articulatedby LucyLippard (along with Seth Siegelaub, certainly he crucial exhibitionorganizerand criticof thatmovement) n late 1969:Art intended as pure experiencedoesn't exist untilsomeone experi-ences it, defying wnership,reproduction, ameness. Intangibleartcould breakdownthe artificialmposition f "culture" and provideabroader audience fora tangible,object art. When automatismfreesmillions f hours for eisure,art should gain ratherthan diminish nimportance,forwhile art is not ust play, it is the counterpoint owork. The timemaycome when art is everyone'sdaily occupation,thoughthereis no reason to think hisactivitywillbe called art.33

While it seems obvious that artistscannot be held responsiblefor theculturallynd politically aivevisionsprojectedon theirwork venbytheirmostcompetent, oyal, nd enthusiasticritics,tnow seemsequallyobviousthat t wasprecisely heutopianism fearlieravant-gardemovementsthetype hatLipparddesperately ttempts o resuscitateforthe occasion) that was manifestlybsentfromConceptual Art throughout ts history despite Robert Barry'sonetimeinvocation of Herbert Marcuse, declaring the commercialgalleryas "Someplaces towhichwe can come,and for while be freeto think boutwhatwe aregoingtodo'"). It seemsobvious, t least from hevantageoftheearly1990s,thatfrom ts nceptionConceptualArtwas distinguished y tsacute sense ofdiscur-sive and institutionalimitations,tsself-imposedestrictions,ts ack oftotalizingvision, ts criticaldevotion to the factualconditionsof artisticproductionandreceptionwithout spiringto overcome the mere facticityf these conditions.This became evident as works such as Hans Haacke's series of Visitors' rofiles(1969- 70), in itsbureaucratic igor nd deadpan devotionto thestatistic ollec-tion of factual information, ame to refuse any transcendentaldimensionwhatsoever.Furthermore,t now seemsthat t wasprecisely profounddisenchantmentwith thosepoliticalmaster-narrativeshatempoweredmostof 20s avant-gardeartthat, cting na peculiarfusionwith hemostadvanced and radicalforms fcritical artisticreflection, ccounts for the peculiar contradictionsoperatingwithin proto) Conceptual Artof the mid-to late-1960s. It would explain whythisgeneration ftheearly 60s-in itsgrowing mphasison empiricismnd itsscepticismwithregardtoall utopianvision wouldbe attracted, orexample,to33. LucyLippard, "Introduction," n 955.000 (Vancouver:The VancouverArtGallery,January13- February8, 1970), n. p.

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Buchloh, Conceptual Art