Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

the effacement involved is of interest to us insofar as it makes manifest, once again, the disappearance
of form (in painting) as a pole of attraction of interest, that is to say makes manifest our questioning
of the concept of the painting in particular and the concept of art in general.
This questioning is absolutely alien to the habits of responding, implies thousands of fresh
responses, and implies therefore the end of formalism, the end of the mania for responding (art).
Vulgarization through repetition is already calling in question the further banality of art.]
(f) Anonymity: From the [seven] preceding sections there emerges a relationship which
itself leads to certain considerations; this is the relationshipwhich may exist between the “creator”
and the proposition we are attempting to define. First fact to be established: he is no longer
the owner of his work. Furthermore, it is not his work, but a work. The neutrality of the purpose—“painting
as the subject of painting”—and the absence from it of considerations of
style, forces us to acknowledge a certain anonymity. This is obviously not anonymity in the
person who proposes this work, which once again would be to solve a problem by presenting
it in a false light—why should we be concerned to know the name of the painter of the Avignon
Pieta—but of the anonymity of the work itself as presented. This work being considered as
common property, there can be no question of claiming the authorship thereof, possessively,
in the sense that there are authentic paintings of Courbet and valueless forgeries. As we have
remarked, the projection of the individual is nil; we cannot see how he could claim his work
as belonging to him. In the same way we suggest that the same proposition made by X or Y
would be identical to that made by the author of this text. If you like, the study of past work
forces us to admit that there is no longer, as regards the form defined above—when it is presented—any
truth or falsity in terms of conventional meaning, which can be applied to both
these terms relating to a work of art. 5 [The making of the work has no more than a relative interest,
and in consequence he who makes the work has no more than a relative, quasi-anecdotal interest
and cannot at any time make use of it to glorify “his” product.] It may also be said that the work
of which we speak, because neutral/anonymous, is indeed the work of someone, but that this
someone has no importance whatsoever [since he never reveals himself], or, if you like, the importance
he may have is totally archaic. Whether he signs “his” work or not, it nevertheless
remains anonymous.
(g) The Viewpoint—The Location: Lastly, one of the external consequences of our proposition
is the problem raised by the location where the work is shown. In fact the work, as it is
seen to be without composition and as it presents no accident to divert the eye, becomes itself
the accident in relation to the place where it is presented. The incident of any form considered
as such, and the judgement against such forms on the facts established in the preceding
daniel buren beware 153