Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

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7. Rosalind Krauss, “We Lost It at the Movies,” Art Bulletin, 76, no. 4 (1994), p. 579.
8. My own activities as an artist have recently been subjected to what I can only call an organized
form of abuse by writers associated with October who seem to want to keep the voice of authority
presumed by the former while having the “creative”flexibility of the latter. See, e.g., October,
no. 55 (Winter 1990); no. 57 (Summer 1991); no. 69 (Summer 1994); and no. 70 (Fall 1994).
This has continued as well, in various public lectures, panel discussions, and exhibition catalogues
by the same writers.
9. Joseph Kosuth, “Introductory Note by the American Editor,” Art-Language 1, no. 2 (1970),
1–4, especially 2–3, repr. in idem, Art after Philosophy and After: Collected Writings, 1966–
1990, ed. Gabriele Guercio (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), pp. 37–70.
10. See “Conceptual Art and the Reception of Duchamp,”Round Table, in October, no. 70 (Fall
1994), as an example. We know that there is a place for polemics. What I feel I can reasonably
object to is when my work and historical position are intentionally misrepresented as a consequence
of the polemical mission of writers who enjoy an authority as institutionally affiliated
historians. Is it not an ethical issue when academic validation, which at least has the implication
of scholarly disinterest, is used for such purposes?
11. After nearly thirty years as an artist, I have recently been surprised to learn that this may
not be true, a least in the short run, if certain individuals, for ad hominem motives or careerist
expediency, decide otherwise. We need to keep in mind that such writing lowers the level for all
of us. The concern is that it becomes part of a record, one which is restated (and restated again,
eventually taking on the quality of a “fact”) as a natural process of the art-historical enterprise
itself. The vendettas of such fashions of history (and their petty and personal banalities) may
fade from memory, but their historical view may not. Perhaps whatever altruism remains might
force our reconsideration of the dubious value of what may have been written as a result of such
intentions. Indeed, we need to ask: are these art-historical intentions, or are they something
else?
This text was published in Art Bulletin, 78: 3 (September 1996), pp. 407–412.