Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

The historically evolving unconscious rules of language were understood to have a ho-
mologous relationship to what I have called the “logic” of culture. Thus, the attempt to formalistically
disassociate our work from our society’s iconographic surface structure (and attempt
to arrive at some kind of “non-style”) partially explains the reasoning behind (in Saussure’s
terms) the attempted use of the signifier as the signified—what else could more clearly focus
our attention on the system of art itself?
A TCA praxis which doesn’t include a distinction between implicit theory (“models”)
and explicit theory (articles) is incapable of clearly establishing the interdependence between
the two. Insofar as art-practice itself can only be historically understood as model construction
then explicit theory itself becomes the model (with its meaning understood to be implicit—
that is, as not being what is actually said in the texts themselves). The point perhaps being that
unless one sets up the models as part of a conscious and controlled (relative to the endeavor)
program inclusive of a self-reflexive and self-critical dynamic, formalistically functioning explicitly,
then alternatively what emerges uncritically is a model arrived at via (social) practice. Thus
one can begin to see that what has been Art & Language’s weakness according to one mapping
is its potential strength according to another.
Art & Language’s role as an (art) model builder in the past is then subject to interpretation.
What does make Art & Language extremely important is the implicit social critique in
its methodology. I don’t refer here to “collaboration”—this was in no way unique to Art &
Language, and the unevenness of participation in practice makes “collaboration” a misnomer
in signifying what’s special about the group. As Mel Ramsden recently put it: 11
I still insist on the social roots of the problem.“The group” forced to compete in an individualistic
antagonistic self-interested (Adam Smith you Scottish Bastard) world.For example: “having a
show” is a one or two man endeavor.You need impact and gestalt.The whole thing is epistemologically
individualistic.That’s that.One reason for the collapse of A&L was that it moved from the
journal (which was a “group effort”) to gallery shows which suddenly meant 15 or 14 out of the
16 people were standing around pretending they knew what was going on.There’s nothing wrong
with leaders, it’s just when others see them leading and you following that we get screwed up.
Again, these problems are social, not “merely psychological.” 12
The importance of Art & Language remains as an ideological (art) collective. I say “collective”
and not community, but one could say the collective consists of two communities—one in
England and the other in New York. The recent collapse of the spirit of Art & Language as one
community has come about through work by the New York group which concerns itself with
joseph kosuth 1975 343