Philosophy as art

Insofar as modern art is characterized by a certain confusion between art and philosophy, it has its beginnings in the German Romantic movement. The self-referential megalomania of Friedrich Schlegel's 116th Athenäum Fragment is the original model of the manifestos of all twentieth century art movements. And the philosophical branch of conceptual art has an important antecedent in the Idealism of Fichte and Schelling – a philosophical tradition which, as Novalis noted rightaway, may just as well be viewed as an artistic one.

Es ist aber wahrscheinlich, dass es Menschen giebt und geben wird – die weit besser Fichtisiren werden, als Fichte. Es können wunderbare Kunstwercke hier entstehen – wenn man das Fichtisiren erst artistisch zu treiben beginnt.

Novalis: Fichte Studien. In: P. Kluckhohn & R. Samuel (eds.): Novalis Schriften, Vol. 2. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1960 (524, 8-15).

An extraordinarily successful piece in this genre is the philosophical system of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, which, among many other things, encompasses a theory about this very development. Hegel predicts (and launches) a trend in the history of art: away from beauty, away from perception, increasingly discursive and theoretical. Eventually, art will transform itself into philosophy.

At this highest stage, art now transcends itself, in that it forsakes the element of reconciled embodiment of the spirit in sensuous form and passes over from the poetry of imagination to the prose of thought.

G.W.F. Hegel: Introduction to Aesthetics: The Introduction to the Berlin Aesthetics Lectures of the 1820s. Translation: T.M. Knox. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 89.

It is not clear yet, whether the Weltgeist is indeed unfolding itself in accordance with Hegel's scheme. Some phenomena do fit in with his predictions: the formalization of art theory (Bense), the automatization of art production (IAAA), and selfrighteous forms of art criticism which usurpate the actual art (Greenberg, Barthes). So far, however, these seem to be incidental exceptions in a completely conservative, fashion-oriented, mindless artworld.

An unintended parody on Hegel's dream is provided by Joseph Kosuth and the Art & Language group. These artists present bad academic philosophy as an art form which is mostly concerned with its own historical importance.

    

Generative Aesthetics

Die Ästhetik entwirft Prinzipien möglicher Kunstwerke . . ., aber nicht durch die Mittel der Kunst, sondern in der Form der reinen Theorie.

Max Bense: Aesthetica. Einführung in die neue Aesthetik. Baden-Baden: Agis-Verlag, 1965.

L'objet d'avant-garde, aujourd'hui, est essentiellement théorique: sous la double pression des politiques et des intellectuels, ce sont les positions (et leur exposé) qui sont aujourd'hui d'avant-garde, non forcément les œuvres. (...) Encore faut-il préciser que la "théorie", qui est la pratique décisive de l'avant-garde, n'a pas en soi un rôle progressiste: son rôle – actif – est de révéler comme passé ce que nous croyons encore présent: la théorie mortifie, et c'est en cela qu'elle est d'avant-garde.

Roland Barthes in response to questions by Claude Jannoud: "Roland Barthes contre les idées reçues", Le Figaro, July 27, 1974.

It is obvious that to appreciate the many facets of open forms is beyond the means of any ordinary listener and possibly only of real significance to the composer himself.

Reginald Smith Brindle: The New Music, p. 72.

 

Art & Language and Joseph Kosuth

In the second half of the 1960's, the Art & Language group (Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge, Michael Baldwin, Harold Hurrell, Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden, Philip Pilkington, David Rushton) and Joseph Kosuth launched a theoretically oriented art form called "conceptual art". Their stated aim was the coincidence of art, art criticism, aesthetic theory and political philosophy. Their output thus consisted largely of essays on art, aesthetics, and epistemology.

Kosuth and the Art & Language artists also made museum art. Initially these were mostly verbal, minimal or invisible pieces. According to some of the artists' theoretical essays, the actual artwork is in such cases constituted by the discourse which the museum-piece evokes. (There is an analogy with minimal art, where the artwork is sometimes considered to be first and foremost a trigger for our reflection on its relation with the spectator and the surrounding space.)

"The propositions of art are not factual, but linguistic in character, that is, they do not describe the behavior of physical or even mental objects: they express definitions of art, or the formal consequences of definitions of art."

Joseph Kosuth: "Art After Philosophy I & II." Studio International, October/November 1969.

"With the unassisted Ready-Made, art changed its focus from the form of the language to what was being said. Which means that it changed the nature of art from a question of morphology to a question of function. This change – one from 'appearance' to 'conception' – was the beginning of 'modern' art and the beginning of 'conceptual' art."

Joseph Kosuth: "Art after Philosophy, part I", Studio International, October 1969, p. 135.

"The 'purest' definition of conceptual art would be that it is inquiry into the foundation of the concept 'art', as it has come to mean."

Joseph Kosuth: "Art after Philosophy, part II", Studio International, November 1969, p. 160.

    

Against Theory as Art

My sense of language is that it is matter and not ideas – i.e., "printed matter".

Robert Smithson, 1972. (Cf. Press Release 1967.)

Question 14: "How am I supposed to interpret Kosuth's departure from formalism?"
Answer: "To us it seems that typography is a part of formalism since it has an aesthetic value no matter whether it conveys a philosophical message or not . . . are you implying that we should use another font face?"

NonPlace: Frequently Asked Questions

Aus der Kunst eine philosophische Frage machen . . ., heißt das nicht die Herrschaftsgeste der Philosophie wiederholen, die immer schon die Kunst dem Logos und der Wahrheit unterordnen wollte und die bezeichnenderweise immer schon an die Spitze der Hierarchie die Sprachkünste, die Poesie gestellt hat?

Sarah Kofman: Melancholie der Kunst, Graz & Wien, 1986.

HS: "Können Sie sich vorstellen, daß Sie Philosophieprofessor wären, der seine Lehre in einem normalen akademischen Gehäuse vorträgt?"

JB: "Ja, das trage ich ja vor, sehr oft sogar."

HS: "Sie tun es, aber sie tun es nicht nur. Von der Kunst her wird man Sie sicher oft fragen: Warum arbeiten Sie so stark theoretisch? Ich frage jetzt umgekehrt: Wenn Sie so viel Theorie haben, warum benötigen Sie dann noch das künstlerische Material?"

JB: "Weil der Mensch im schöpferischen Vorgang sich überhaupt nur am Material entfalten kann. Er ist ja kein absolutes, geistiges Wesen. Er ist ja verkörpert."

HS: "Was würde geschehen, wenn das Künstlerische entfiele: man würde Bücher lesen, Bücher schreiben und seine Gedanken vortragen?"

JB: "Dann würde die Menschheit untergehen. Denn der Mensch ist ja verkörpert. Das ist das Sakrament, wie es sich am Menschen zeigt. [...] Dieser Zusammenhang zwischen Geist und Mensch, zwischen einem geistigen Wesen und einem im Körper lebenden Geist ist etwas einmaliges, und das nennt man Mensch.

Joseph Beuys interviewed by Horst Schwebel. In: Horst Schwebel: Glaubwürdig. Fünf Gespräche über heutige Kunst und Religion mit Joseph Beuys, Heinrich Böll, Herbert Falken, Kurt Mari, Dieter Wellershoff. München: Kaiser Verlag, 1979.

Philosophical Essays as Art

Konrad Bayer & Oswald Wiener: "Die Folgen geistiger Ausschweifung." Vortrag für zwei Personen, 1960-1964. In: Gerhard Rühm  (ed.): Die Wiener Gruppe. Achleitner, Artmann, Bayer, Rühm, Wiener. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1967, pp. 319-326.

Joseph Kosuth: "Art after Philosophy, Part I / Part II." Studio International, October/November 1969.

Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge, Michael Baldwin, Harold Hurrell, Joseph Kosuth (eds.): ART-LANGUAGE. The Journal of Conceptual Art. Vol. 1, nos. 1-3 (May 1969-June 1970); vol. 2, no. 1 (February 1972). Art and Language Press. Contributors include Sol LeWitt, Dan Graham, Ian Burn, Philip Pilkington, Graham Howard.

Sarah Charlesworth, Michael Corris, Preston Heller, Joseph Kosuth, Andrew Menard and Mel Ramsden (eds.): THE FOX. Nos. 1-3. New York: Art and Language Foundation, 1975-1976. Contributions by the editors and Michael Baldwin, Philip Pilkington, Ian Burn, Adrian Piper, Michael Corris, Zoran Popovic, Paul Wood, Lynn Lemaster, Terry Smith, Ron White, Karl Beveridge, Trevor Pateman, Jasna Tijardovic, David Rushton, Martha Rosler, Terry Atkinson.

 

Secondary References

Peter Osborne: "Conceptual Art and/as Philosophy." In: Michael Newman & Jon Bird (eds.): Rewriting Conceptual Art. London: Reaktion Books, 1999, 47-65.

Thomas Dreher: "Art & Language UK (1966-72): Maps and Models." In: Oliver Jahraus, Nina Ort and Benjamin Marius Schmidt (eds.): Beobachtungen des Unbeobachtbaren. Konzepte radikaler Theoriebildung in den Geisteswissenschaften. Weilerswist: Velbrück Verlag, 2000, pp. 169-198.

Thomas Dreher: Konzeptuelle Kunst.

Thomas Dreher: Art & Language – Bildchronologie 1966-99.