Joseph Kosuth - An Interpretation of This Title

As a pioneer of Conceptualism, Joseph Kosuth’s investigations into the idea of art, or art as idea, have not only sustained his practice for over four decades, but also, I would confidently argue, considerably influenced what art has become ever since.

In the 1960s, the Conceptualists engaged in a project of re-evaluating the institution of art, its beliefs and practices, and above all, its authoritative aura. For Kosuth, Conceptual Art was to change the understanding of the reception of art, from seeing to reading, and consequently question the canonical doctrines of what constituted a work of visual art. The approach employed to perform this institutional self-reflexiveness was a form of harsh reductionism that was condensed all the way down to mere tautology. Basing his practice on the fundamental questioning of linguistic meaning, Kosuth’s works represented what he liked to call “Art as Idea as Idea.” In ‘Art’, one of my personal favourites, the very concept is stripped down to its most essential form – a sheer definition. The work has no conventional aesthetic quality and lacks the laboured skill which an artist usually imparts on his work; yet, it is, quite literally, art. It proclaims itself as such. Works like this demanded to be read and challenged the very to-be-looked-at-ness of Modernism and its institutions; simultaneously pushing the boundaries of what entails art, and redefining the kinds of things art can be.

Last week I took the opportunity to meet Mr. Kosuth – twice! It is, so far, the highlight of my short career. Over forty years after his first important piece – ‘One and three chairs’, created when he was just 20 years old, a fact which is enough to leave anyone with the bitter taste of inadequacy – Kosuth continues to explore the idea of art. ‘An interpretation of this title’ is his latest offering, which can be seen at the Anna Schwartz Gallery in Darlington. This installation comprises, in the artist’s description, a ‘horizon line of two texts by Nietzsche’ and ‘drawings of Charles Darwin, as descriptions of a scientific order being posited’ in Kosuth’s signature neon. Here, it seems that Kosuth is attempting to map the intersection between science and philosophy through the disciplines’ powerhouses, in particular ‘Nietzsche’s relationship with the implications of Darwin’s theories about human evolution’, within the context of art. While the academic/theoretical/philosophical conditions in which this work finds itself exceeds my own grasps and are, instead, discussed with much more authority and accuracy in the artist’s essay on the piece, it can nevertheless be enjoyed on a more basic level. To the untrained eye, Darwin’s figures look more like artistic sketches than scientific diagrams, and the entire piece, which spans four large walls, envelops the looker/reader in its fluorescent warmth. Furthermore, the scale of the work demands one to move and navigate the room in order to take in the whole piece. It is a work, like all of Kosuth’s, which requires lengthy contemplation, rather than just a cursory ‘look’; in short, one must work to understand it. I am still working on it.