Cover of Art-Language Volume 5 Number 1 by Art & Language showing a drawing of Mel RamsdenCover of Art-Language the journal of conceptual art by Art & Language with texts by Michael Baldwin, Sol LeWitt, Dan Graham, Lawrence Weiner, and David BainbridgeCover of Art-Language Volume 5 Number 2 by Art & Language showing a drawing of Victorine Meurent
Art-Language: The Journal of Conceptual Art (1969-1985) was a magazine published by the conceptual artists of Art & Language. Involving more than 20 artists in the United States, Europe, and Australia, and covering almost 20 years production, it is one of the most extensive artworks of conceptual art and is regarded as an important influence on both conceptual art and contemporary art.
I don't understand quite a good deal of what is said by Art-Language, but I admire the investigatory energies, the tireless spade-work (not calling one one), the full commitment to the reestablishment of a valid language by which to discuss art and the occasional humour in their writings. The chaos in their reasons fascinates me, but it is also irritating to be unequipped to evaluate their work. - Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object, Lucy R. Lippard, 1973.[1]
The name Art & Language is derived from the journal Art-Language that was published by Art & Language Press.[2][3] Art & Language Press had been created in 1968 to give a publication arm to the ongoing conversation between the four founders of Art & Language, (Michael Baldwin, Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge, Harold Hurrell), and also between Art & Language and other artists in America or other parts of the world.[4][5] Strong connections have been made over time between the British artists of Art & Language and American artists, in 1966, Michael Baldwin who has just been rewarded a Prize from the Northern Young Contemporaries, spent the money on a trip to New York, to meet and discuss with Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Morris. In November 1967, thanks to Robert Smithson, arts magazine, a New York-based magazine, published for the first time a text-work of Art & Language (before the foundation of the group) titled Remarks on Air-Conditioning, an Extravaganza of Blandness written by Michael Baldwin. It is interesting to note Michael Baldwin is presented as an English writer and an artist concerned with the non-exhibition.[6][7] In 1969, Art Press, was produced in New York by Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden. In it they published their own text-works as well as items by Adrian Piper, Sol LeWitt and Stephen Kaltenbach[8] or independent works of them like the opera Victorine.
History
Art-Language: The Journal of Conceptual Art was published by Art & Language Press,[9] it is regarded as an important influence on both conceptual art and contemporary art.[10][11][12] Art & Language Press was founded at the same time as an art practice under the name Art & Language in 1968 by four artists, Michael Baldwin, Terry Atkinson, Harold Hurrell, and David Bainbridge.[13] They were also the editors of the first volume published in May 1969.[14]
Terry Atkinson spent the summer of 1969 with Joseph Kosuth in New York, and in August of that year, Joseph Kosuth became the American editor of Art-Language.[15] From the second volume, the journal was edited both in the United Kingdom and in the United States,[16] Essays by members of Art & Language appeared regularly in Studio International, and in February 1970, the general editor and art critic Charles Harrison published an article titled Notes Towards Art Work, arguing that ″The only alternative to criticism is art″.[17] In 1971, having resigned from Studio International, he became the general editor of Art-Language. In 1971, Terry Atkinson had also met Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden in New York in 1969 and, having published a number of text-works as the Society for Theoretical Art and Analyses, they joined with Art-Language that year.[18][19] At the same time in Coventry, David Rushton, Philip Pilkington and Graham Howard, three Art Theory students of Baldwin, Bainbridge and Atkinson began to work under the name of Art & Language. In that year Coventry College of Art was transformed into the Faculty of Art and Design, part of Lanchester Polytechnic.[20] The new dean of the faculty, saw it as his task to bring an end to the Art-Theory course.
In the summer of 1971, the Art-Theory course was dismantled by arbitrary exercise of power and Baldwin and Bainbridge dismissed along with some other members of the part-time staff. Atkinson remained. His presence enabled the authorities in charge to claim some credibility for the ruins ... Art & Language found itself in exile from any official academic or educational context … Art & Language work in all its forms was addressed first and foremost to ‘art’ as discourse, rather than to the enlargement of the extensive category of art objects - [21]
Michael Baldwin and Terry Atkinson wrote an extensive 25 pages critical essay on Art education in an article titled "Art Teaching" and published it in Art-Language Volume 1 Number 4. In 1973, Atkinson eventually resigned.
In virtue of this prototype of present art-school sensibility, William Morris and his followers have helped spawn the resolute craftsmanship bias in British art education in the earlier part of the century. Of course this is not to say that Morris' influence stopped at Lowestoft and the Wash; the Bauhaus founders had a good look at Morris -and there may yet be a case for looking at the Bauhaus as the definitive example in showing how ″fine art″ and ″design″ do diverge.[22]
While, in 1972, the activity of Art & Language was exclusively textual and its identity somehow confounded with Art-Language, the production of the Index 01, for the Documenta 5, under the name of The Art & Language Institute marked a shift.[23] From Art-Language Volume 2 Number 3, the journal became anonymous and the authorship of the texts weren't given anymore to individuals. The journal continued to be published until 1985, and the implications of the indexes of 1972-3 persisted in bearing in various ways – and to a greater and lesser extent upon its content.
A new series appeared in 1994, continuing for three issues until 1999. Apart from Baldwin, Ramsden and Harrison, into whose hands the work of Art & Language had been taken by 1976, its contributors included Philip Pilkington and Paul Wood. [24]
Editors
The first number was edited by Art & Language, Joseph Kosuth became the American editor from August 1969 until 1972, and Art & Language remained the English editors. In 1971, Charles Harrison became the general editor of Art-Language, and he remained so until the last volume.
Contents
Given the desire for anonymity attached to the members of the group, it is difficult to know who did what in Art & Language. Nevertheless, the authors of the articles are named in the first seven issues of the magazine, and from 1974, all texts are collectively attributed to Art & Language. But, since during the internal problems that the group encountered between 1975 and 1976, the name Art & Language remained in the hands of Michael Baldwin, Mel Ramsden and Charles Harrison, it is logical to give them the authorship of the texts from Volume 3 Number 4.[25][26]
To lend support to their pseudo-cultural references and to their bluffing games, with a complacent display of questionable scholarship, certain artists attempt to explain what conceptual art would be, could be or should be -thus making a conceptual work. There is no lack of vulgarity in pretense. In place of unpretentious inquiry we are subjected to a hodgepodge of explanations and justifications which serve as obfuscation in the attempt to convince us of the existence of thought. For these, conceptual art has become verbiage art. They are no longer living in the twentieth century but wish to revive the eighteenth.[27]
By putting forward its forgotten card-files and print-outs (its caskets of information) conceptualism recapitulates a kind of Mallarméan aesthetic: social subjects are presented as enigmatic hieroglyphs and given the authority of the crypt. The identification of bureaucracy, publicity and academicism with cryptic utterances expresses an awareness of the participation of universities and bureaucracies in a corporate death-machine, an awareness which of course animated the student movement. - Jeff Wall, 1981.[28]
I don't understand quite a good deal of what is said by Art-Language, but I admire the investigatory energies, the tireless spade-work (not calling one one), the full commitment to the reestablishment of a valid language by which to discuss art and the occasional humour in their writings. The chaos in their reasons fascinates me, but it is also irritating to be unequipped to evaluate their work. I don't know how it is or if it is evaluated by adepts in philosophy as philosophy, but I find it infuriating to have to take them on faith. - Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object, Lucy R. Lippard, 1973.[29]
Related Research Articles
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work are prioritized equally to or more than traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions. This method was fundamental to American artist Sol LeWitt's definition of conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.
Terry Atkinson is an English artist.
Art & Language is an English conceptual artists' collaboration that has undergone many changes since it was created around 1967. The group was founded by artists who shared a common desire to combine intellectual ideas and concerns with the creation of art, and included many Americans.
Joseph Kosuth is an American conceptual artist, who lives in New York and London, after having resided in various cities in Europe, including Ghent and Rome.
Michael Corris is an artist, art historian and writer on art. He is professor emeritus of art, Division of Art, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, United States. Previously, Corris held the post of Professor of Fine Art at the Art and Design Research Center, Sheffield Hallam University. From 2005-6, he was a Visiting Professor of Art Theory at the Bergen Art Academy.
One and Three Chairs, 1965, is a work by Joseph Kosuth. An example of conceptual art, the piece consists of a chair, a photograph of the chair, and an enlarged dictionary definition of the word "chair". The photograph depicts the chair as it is actually installed in the room, and thus the work changes each time it is installed in a new venue.
Terry Smith is an Australian art historian, art critic and artist who currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, New York and Sydney.
Lucy Rowland Lippard is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the "dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. She is the author of 21 books on contemporary art and has received numerous awards and accolades from literary critics and art associations.
David Askevold was an experimental Canadian artist who lived in Nova Scotia.
Charles Townsend Harrison, BA Hons (Cantab), MA (Cantab), PhD (London) was a UK art historian who taught Art History for many years and was Emeritus Professor of History and Theory of Art at the Open University. Although he denied being an artist himself, he was a full participant and catalyst in the Art and Language group.
Christine Kozlov was an American conceptual artist.
Ed Herring was a British artist who had an international career in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He is generally considered to be a conceptual artist.
The Château de Montsoreau-Museum Contemporary Art is a private museum open to the public in Montsoreau, France. It opened 8 April 2016. The permanent collection exhibited at Château de Montsoreau consists of Philippe Méaille's collection of works by the conceptual art collective Art & Language.
Pinacotheca was a gallery in Melbourne, Australia. Established in 1967 by Bruce Pollard, it was ideologically committed to the avant-garde and represented a new generation of artists interested in post-object, conceptual and other non-traditional art forms.
Mel Ramsden is a British conceptual artist and member of the Art & Language artist group.
Michael Baldwin is a British conceptual artist, author and founding member of the Art & Language artist group.
Harold Hurrell is a British conceptual artist and former member of the Art & Language artist group.
Secret Painting is a series of artworks created by British conceptual artist Mel Ramsden for the collective Art & Language between 1967 and 1968. The series consists of monochrome paintings juxtaposed with text panels explaining the absence of a conventional subject; for example, one states that the painting in question is invisible.
Index: Incident in a Museum is an extensive series of paintings produced between 1985 and 1988 by Michel Baldwin and Mel Ramsden, members of the British conceptual artists' collective Art & Language.
David Bainbridge was a British sculptor, Conceptual Artist and member of the artist group Art & Language.
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