Joseph Kosuth and Seth Siegelaub Reply to Benjamin Buchloh on Conceptual Art Author(s): Joseph Kosuth and Seth Siegelaub Source: October, Vol. 57 (Summer, 1991), pp. 152-157 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778876 . Accessed: 22/11/2014 10:08 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to October. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.102.42.98 on Sat, 22 Nov 2014 10:08:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Joseph Kosuth and Seth Siegelaub Reply to Benjamin Buchloh on Conceptual Art We are herereprinting, at therequest of Joseph Kosuth, the following replies to BenjaminBuchloh's "Conceptual Art 1962-1969: Fromthe Aesthetics of Administration to theCritique of Institutions,"which appeared in October 55 (Winter1990). These replieswere writtenin responseto the versionof the essaythat appeared in L'art conceptuel: une perspective(Paris: Musee d'artmoderne de la Villede Paris, 1989). Kosuth'sinitial response was insertedinto the first edition of the catalog, and therevised versionprinted below (which Kosuth has nowfurther revised with the additionof a commenton Buchloh'sfootnote 28 [footnote29 in the October version])appeared, togetherwith a responseby Seth Siegelaub,in thesecond edition of thecatalog. The quotationswithin the replies come from the version of Buchloh's essay that appeared in thecatalog. It is the firsttime in my experience that I have seen a participantin an historicalsurvey show attacked-much less withsuch vehemence. When it is an art historianwho takes as his task the defamationof a livingartist in character, work, and name, the situationis even more difficultto countenance. I do not propose thatMr. Buchloh give up his grimsubjectivity. Yet, it should not escape notice that his attack is primarilya personal one and grounded in my writings, ratherthan an analysisof my work. WhetherMr. Buchloh's newfoundwriting style- apparentlydeveloped for thisoccasion-is intended to pass as theoryor art historyundoubtedly will provide some amusing speculation,but in any case it does a disserviceto both while satisfyingthe requirementsof neither. Unfortunately,the moralismat the root of Mr. Buchloh'sjournalism does not translate into a professional ethic. In his systematiccondemnation and ridicule of my work, he breaches not only the trust I placed in his personal assurances of a fair and objective reading of this period-he engages in a wholesale falsificationof a history-and not only my own. I would only hope that the blatant cronyismhiding below his "history"of conceptual art and his biased and judgmental diatribe leveled against my work does not escape the attentionof the reader of thiscatalog. This letterwill not address the score of injusticesin Buchloh's articlenor will it attemptto show the limitationsof his historyof the readymade. He had fivemonths to writehis articleand I have had two days to digestit. I willmerely cite two of the most blatant falsehoods,saving an itemized account for a later date. This content downloaded from 130.102.42.98 on Sat, 22 Nov 2014 10:08:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Kosuthand SiegelaubReply to Buchloh 153 Footnote6. Apparently,Mr. Buchloh did not read Artafter Philosophy closely. On Kawara is included. I admire and respect both On Kawara and Sol LeWitt and resent anythingelse being implied. Excuse me if I was influencedby Judd and Morris and not by Buchloh's choices. Their agenda as artistswas something quite separate frommine. This is common knowledgeto those familiarwith the period. The bad faith attributionof my motives is uncalled for. Although Buchloh never asked me, I will say that I never saw Red Square,White Letters by Sol LeWitt until the seventies and was surprised and interestedin it. In any case, it is certainlyan anomaly in his work. As for SVA, i was notorious there when I was a student for questioning the teachers. So much so, in fact,that the directorof the school, Silas Rhodes, put me on the facultyat the age of twenty-two. Footnote18. The exhibitionspace referredto was called the Lannis Gallery (after my cousin Lannis Spencer, who was paying the rent) for the firstmonth, and the Museum of Normal Artthereafter. I nevercalled itthe "Lannis Museum" and corrected anyone who did. Those familiarwith this period know this, as well as the fact (as usual unmentioned) that it was the space where Hanne Darboven, Robert Ryman,On Kawara, and otherswere publiclyexhibited very early-if not for the firsttime. This factand activitiessuch as my show "Fifteen People Present Their Favourite Book" in 1967 (among others) is curiously omitted. By 1967, I was workingon the FirstInvestigation and never exhibited the Proto-Investigationsat the Lannis Gallery.All thisis known and documented. This brings us to his most reprehensibleattack-even beyond the bounds of Buchloh's infamous polemics. It concerns the date of myProto-Investigations. Ever-diligentin supportingthe causes of his friends(Mr. Buchloh has hereto- fore not published on my work, although he borrowsthe voice of an "expert" on Conceptual Art here), my early work presents a special problem for this group, as it does fortheir champion. As I statedvery clearly at the time (Buchloh could have asked Seth Siegelaub et al. about this, rather than interviewing individuals who neither knew my 1965 work nor had anything to gain by supporting me, to put it mildly),these works existed only in notes or drawings and were fabricatedafter I had the financialresources due to interestin the somewhat later work. Of course I was asked "what did you do before?" notably by Gian Enzo Sperone, among other criticsand gallerists.Again, this is all known, if not by Mr. Buchloh. I simplyhad no funds at that age to fabricate works, and frankly,with no hope to exhibit them at the time-and with the nature of the work being what it was-there reallywas no point. This work is titled Proto-Investigations,clearly from the vantage point of the Investigations. Is the physicallyexhibited presence of a workthe onlycriterion for its existence? It isn't, if you know anythingabout Conceptual Art. In contrastto his claims, Mr. Buchloh did not ask me to provide any documentation about this early period. I find it bitterlyironic that he singles out my work to have legitimate dates questioned while the dates of two of his friends'works are patent fabri- This content downloaded from 130.102.42.98 on Sat, 22 Nov 2014 10:08:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 154 OCTOBER cations thatare leftunchallenged. Or are these diversionarytactics the purpose of his essay? In order to isolate and dismiss me as a modernist,Mr. Buchloh simply stops discussing my activitiesat the moment they can be favorablycompared withthe work of his friendson the issue of "institutionalcritique." The period from The Second Investigationthrough to the period of The Fox-the years covered by this exhibition-is completelymissing. At the same time,Mr. Buch- loh takes insights,terminology, even a philosophicalagenda fromthis early text of mine and naturalizes it in the process of validatingthe work he wants to support. And he would have you believe, dear reader, that the "institutional critique" which he ascribes only to the work of his chums burst forthout of thin air, and could have done so withoutbenefit of this early writingand the work which went withit. Mr. Buchloh seems desperate to eitherdeny the work I did or to attribute it to someone else. In good faithI accepted the assurance of Buchloh and others that a hatchetjob of this sort would neitherbe done nor permitted.Buchloh and I had one two-hourconversation (our first)after which it was agreed that we should correspond and exchange summer addresses. I never heard from him again. Apparentlyhe opted for the easier job of a partisan attack rather than doing the necessary homework for a text more appropriate to such a catalog. A press release fora gang of pals should not be confusedwith historical scholarship. With this text, Mr. Buchloh disqualifieshimself once and for all frombeing taken seriouslyon this subject. Footnote28. Mr. Buchloh is himselfa very adept modernistwho uses an endless citationof "facts"-dates, quotes, references,cited works,and so forth for the purpose of constructinga scholarly,"authoritative" genealogy. Yet glar- ing errors abound. In this footnote,to cite one with remarkableimplications, he cites my FirstInvestigations, in passing, as paintings.Those works, texts of definitionsfrom my dictionary,are mounted photographs.Anyone witheven a passing knowledge of my work knows that this work, as well as the Proto- Investigations,used photography.The literatureof and on this period, not to mention my own writingon this work,is replete with referencesto it because of its philosophical/ideologicalimportance for an art engaged withsignification ratherthan auratic manipulationof form.Either Benjamin Buchloh is breath- takinglyignorant of the movementhe is claimingexpertise in (as other errors would suggest), or he has intentionallymisrepresented facts of this historyin order to support a subjectivelyinspired polemic (as the restof his manipulation of the factswould indicate). -Joseph Kosuth, November 19, 1989, and April 20, 1991. This content downloaded from 130.102.42.98 on Sat, 22 Nov 2014 10:08:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Kosuthand SiegelaubReply to Buchloh 155 Despite claims and occasional footnotereferences to the contrary,Buch- loh's text is a formalisticand idealisticone, a sort of tautological"art historyas art historyas art history,"which has little,if any, relationship to the social, economic, or cultural, i.e., historical,period which it pretends to describe.