Tactically, conceptualism is no doubt the strongest position of the three; for the tired nominalist can lapse into conceptualism and still allay his puritanic conscience with the reflection that he has not quite taken to eating lotus with the Platonists. 01/17 – Willard van Orman Quine1 ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPhilosophers often add “-ism” to a term in order to highlight a distinct approach to a fundamental question, that is, to name a philosophical doctrine. For example, when it Terry Smith comes to universals, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy tells us that “Conceptualism is a doctrine in philosophy intermediate between One and Three nominalism and realism that says universals exist only within the mind and have no external Ideas: or substantial reality.”2 There are other definitions, but the point about the use of “-ism” Conceptualism to name a philosophical doctrine is clear. For art critics, curators, and historians, however, “- isms” have somewhat different purposes: they Before, During, name movements in art, broadly shared approaches that have become styles or threaten to do so. During the heroic years of the modern and After t r A movement, when critics, artists, or art historians l a u first added “-ism” to a word, they usually meant t Conceptual Art p what the suffix usually means in ordinary e c n language: that x is like y, even excessively so. o C r Often with ridicule as their aim, they highlighted e t f a quality twice removed from the source of that A d particular art, from its authenticity. Thus n a , “Impressionism” and “Cubism,” neither of which g n h i names what is really going on in the art to which t r i u m D it refers: each takes up a banal misdescription S , e y r r and then exaggerates it into a ludicrous delusion r o f e e T on the part of the artists. The success of the Ê B 1 early twentieth-century avant-gardes led to a m 1 s 0 i l 2 plethora of “-isms” that gradually lost these a r u e t negative connotations and become almost b p e m c e normal descriptors. By mid-century, anyone n v o o could generate an “-ism,” and too many artists n C : s — did so in their efforts to link their unique, often a 9 e 2 d quite individual ways of making art to what they, I # e l e or their promoters, hoped would be market a r n h r T success and art historical inevitability. When u o d j n Willem de Kooning, at a meeting of artists in New x a u l e f York in 1951, said: “It is disastrous to name n - e O ourselves,” his was a lone voice, quickly silenced by the tide that named all present Abstract Expressionists. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBy the 1960s this kind of naming had become so commonplace, so obvious a move, and such a sure pathway to premature institutionalization and incorporation, that many artists rejected it, to avoid being comfortably slotted into what they regarded as an ossified 11.14.11 / 13:56:09 EST history of modernist avant-gardism. In the strategies: insist that the term “conceptual” be 1970s, for example, artists driven primarily by applied so broadly (describing any art no longer political concerns consciously blocked efforts to governed by a traditional medium) as to be designate their work as belonging to a “political meaningless, or so narrowly (indicating only art” movement. Yet for some artists, long language-based art that dealt with Art per se) as excluded from any kind of historical recognition, to be offensive to almost everyone. this was a risk worth taking: feminist artists ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is a nice paradox that the term emphasized their feminism, for instance, 02/17 “conceptualism” came into art world existence precisely because it connected their practice to after the advent of Conceptual art in major the broader social movement to vindicate the centers such as New York and London – most rights of women. prominently and programmatically in the ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs the artists most acutely aware of the exhibition “Global Conceptualism: Points of powers and the pitfalls of exactly these Origin, 1950s–1980s” at the Queens Museum of processes, conceptual artists refused to Art in New York in 1999 – mainly in order to embrace the term “conceptualism” during the highlight the fact that innovative, experimental 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. They were, however, happy art practices occurred in the Soviet Union, to use terms such as “conceptual” for their work, Japan, South America, and elsewhere prior to, at because questioning the concept of art was the same time as, and after the European and US precisely the main point of their practice. As we initiatives that had come to seem paradigmatic, shall see, they foresaw that the tag “Conceptual and to claim that these practices were more Art” would inevitably be associated with their socially and politically engaged – and thus more work, and thus tie it too closely to art that had relevant to their present, better models for already resolved its problems. Their goal was to today’s art, and, in these senses, better art – keep their art (practice) problematic to than the well-known Euro-American exemplars. I themselves by keeping it at a (critical) distance explored a variant of this idea – that from Art (as an institution). They therefore conceptualism was an outcome of some artists’ sought to prevent the precipitous labeling of increased global mobility – in my selections for their art by adopting one or both of two the “Global Conceptualism” exhibition, and in my Art and Language, Art and Language Australia, 1975. 11.14.11 / 13:56:09 EST 03/17 Josef Kosuth, Art as Idea as Idea (Meaning), 1967. Photostat on paper mounted on wood. 11.14.11 / 13:56:09 EST 04/17 Josef Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965. 11.14.11 / 13:56:09 EST catalogue essay, “Peripheries in Motion: essay “Conceptual Art as Art,” Burn gave these Conceptualism and Conceptual Art in Australia works this latter dating and characterized them and New Zealand.”3 Retrospection of this kind as key examples of the “strict form of Conceptual has also shone spotlights on what were once Art” because they were analytic of the nature of regarded as minor movements in Euro-American art, their (minimal) appearance being of the most art (Fluxus, for example). minimal relevance.4 Why did an artist with such a ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe question posed by the exhibition critical attitude toward orthodox art history’s “Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965–1980,” 05/17 puerile dependence on style terms apply such presented at the University of Toronto Art crude criteria to the work of a close colleague?5 Galleries in 2010, is whether a similar valuing ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊKosuth’s response was outrage at applying structure might be applied to certain strands in such anti-conceptual criteria to such work: he art made in Canada from the 1960s to the was an art student who had the ideas but not the present. Even though Canadian artists were resources to realize them; by the time he did conspicuously absent from “Global have these resources a few years later, everyone Conceptualism,” certain artists have since been (including Burn) was dating their work to the valued as contributors to the international moment of conception – immediacy was the new tendency. Thus the exhibition asks us to look in currency.6 more detail at work of the time made throughout ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn one sense Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs the regions of Canada and consider whether (1965) is Pop-like in that its statement about perhaps this valuing can be extended to them. what constitutes a sign is all there, all at once, There is no suggestion that this art was and obvious, as in your face as Richard nationalistic – on the contrary, it was everywhere Hamilton’s 1956 collage Just what is it that based on skepticism about official national makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?, culture-construction. The implication is that but without the fascinated irony that informs the regional conceptualisms existed – that is, that British artist’s perspective. To an observer conceptualist developments (in the broadest outside the US sphere of cultural influence – or, sense) occurred differently in each of the distinct more accurately, at its waxing and waning regions of Canada. Again, the implication is borders – One and Three Chairs might seem to t r skeptical: in every case it is about regionality in A offer viewers an open choice as to which item l a transition, not a self-satisfied parochialism. u seems the most attractive constituent of t ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTriggered by remarks made by some of the p “chairness,” thereby reducing spectatorship to e c key artists back in the day, I wish to revisit the n supermarketlike art consumption, and artmaking o C 7 terms “Conceptual art” and “conceptualism” as r to the provision of competitive goods. To the e t indications of what was at stake in the f extent that this is true, Conceptual art that turns A unraveling of late modern art during the 1960s d on overt demonstration or the instantiation of an n a and in art’s embrace of contemporaneity since. I , idea (as does much of the better known and g n h will do so by asking what conceptualism was i easily illustrated work – think Baldessari, t r i u m before, during, and after Conceptual art, and I D Acconci, or Huebler) shares something with what S , e y r will show that there were at least one, usually r might be called ordinary language Pop art, that r o f e e two, and sometimes three conceptions of T which recycles the visual codes of consumer Ê B conceptualism in play at each moment – and 1 culture.