Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

23. Ad Reinhardt:Paintings, p. 12.
24. It is poetry’s use of common language to attempt to say the unsayable which is problematic,
not any inherent problem in the use of language within the context of art.
25. Ironically, many of them call themselves “Conceptual Poets.” Much of this work is very similar
to Walter de Maria’s work and this is not coincidental; de Maria’s work functions as a kind of
“object” poetry, and his intentions are very poetic: he really wants his work to change men’s lives.
26. Ayer, p. 82.
27. Art-Language 1, no. 1.
28. I did not (and still do not) understand this last decision. Since I first met Weiner, he defended
his position (quite alien to mine) of being a “Materialist.” I always found this last direction
(e.g. Statements) sensical in my terms, but I never understood how it was in his.
29. I began dating my work with the Art as Idea as Idea series.
30. Atkinson, pp. 5–6.
31 All obtainable from Art & Language Press, 84 Jubilee Crescent, Coventry, England.
32. (Of which the author is the American editor.)
33. And Stella, too, of course. But Stella’s work, which was greatly weakened by being painting,
was made obsolete very quickly by Judd and others.
34. Smithson of course did spearhead the Earthwork activity—but his only disciple, Michael
Heizer, is a “one idea” artist who hasn’t contributed much. If you have thirty men digging holes
and nothing develops out of that idea you haven’t got much, have you? A very large ditch, maybe.
This text was first published in three parts in Studio International, 178:915–917 (October, No-
vember, December 1969), pp. 134–137, 160–161, 212–213. Included here are the first two
of the three parts.
joseph kosuth art after philosophy 177