From Art Object to Text: Language and Perception in Early Conceptual Practices

Anglo-Saxon conceptual practices emerging in the 1960s were not only a reaction against modernist discourse, but also the final episode in its search for self-reflection, self-criticism and inquiry into the nature and status of art. The proponents of conceptual art rejected materialist, subjective and expressive theories of the artistic medium and replaced them with idea and thinking as the key principles of art production, thereby making the linguistic, sociological, philosophical, cultural and political context of an artwork important. Ideas rising within this framework offered a form of intellectual self-reflection and at the same time proposed new concepts and possibilities for art production. In art practices of early conceptualism the idea of art was an important topic, in which art practice and art theory were closely intertwined. The relationship between words and images was in this context of paramount importance. Language was a significant trajectory in changing the role and status of art, engendering the shift from an autonomous, aesthetic art object to a textual basis of art, whereby the theory of art itself became considered an artwork. Text was no longer the interpretative support of visual code (image), explaining its meaning, but rather the constitutive element of the artwork. Conceptualism believed that art was first and foremost an intellectual activity, in which it was more important to invent new meanings than new forms. Language thus became an ideal means for turning the focus from formal analysis to the context and discursive formation of artwork.