The project investigates the relationship between historical and current forms of protest and conceptual art/artistic and conceptual practices. Against the backdrop of current protest movements and their aesthetic forms, it analyses whether and when links are to be found between these different forces, and the nature of any such links. It forges a coherent connection between concepts and intellectual figures from art history and their political implications that necessitate a critical re-evaluation of the history of conceptual art.
The term “conceptual art” has been used since the 1960s to describe works of art whose primary idea or concept is considered on a par with how the work is executed in practice. It is not entirely clear where the name came from. American artists such as Sol LeWitt, Joseph Kosuth, Henry Flynt, Victor Burgin and members of Art & Language, who used the term for their work are most commonly cited in this context. For formal reasons, the term has become detached from these early roots and is now used by art historians to denote a stylistic category as well as being associated with abstract painting and minimalist art. Among those considered its pioneers are René Magritte, Marcel Broodthaers and the father of the movement, Marcel Duchamp. Art historian Benjamin Buchloh was a particular proponent of this linear canonisation with works such as his hotly debated essay entitled “Conceptual Art 1962-1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions” (Buchloh 1990). According to Buchloh, Duchamp is the seminal influence in conceptual art, since he is said to have been the first to talk about the framing function of art institutions with such clarity and to express considerable criticism both of their power to define ideas and categories of idealistic aesthetics. Buchloh’s normative demands and narrow-mindedness sparked fierce criticism, for instance when Kosuth and Siegelaub accused him of fixating on Duchamp and tampering with history. They maintained that conceptual art cannot be adequately measured in purely art-historical terms. As they saw it, what really mattered was that many artistic expressions were political projects arising around the year 1968 in the closely interrelated context of the Vietnam war or the student protests, for example. Against the backdrop of current protest movements and their aesthetic forms that evoke the conceptual art movement, the research project examines the question of whether and what sort of references to conceptual art can be identified in such movements and, in light of the clear relationship with political protest, to what extent we need to go back to the drawing board and rewrite the history of so-called conceptual art. The emphasis is on finding new connections, introducing a change in perspective and arguing for a decentralised and updated take on (artistic) conceptual practices. So for one thing, it compiles an alternative genealogy of (artistic) conceptual practices, while using an extended analytical framework and references that appear essential to the current debate to argue for the critical potential of these practices to be updated. In other words, it focuses on researching and analysing the connecting lines between artistic conceptual practices and social movements, since these are generally marginalised or suppressed in art history. Furthermore, it significantly expands the scope of studies beyond the prominent representatives of conceptual art. Light is also shed on viewpoints and artistic expressions away from artistic centres (e.g. in Southern and Central American and Eastern European countries as well as in Turkey and Hong Kong), some of which emerged at the same time as the intrinsically art-based conceptual art movement of the “Western” art scene in the 1960s, but which transcended the bounds of conceptual art and rigorously explored art's potential with regard to social, political and economic circumstances as well as their influence and transformation. Three case studies planned here in Buenos Aires, Istanbul and Hong Kong identify the continuities in this line of development and investigate their contemporary aesthetic forms. In Buenos Aires, the Tucumán Arde archive documents the politicisation of Argentinian artists since the mid-1960s within their theoretical contexts. Istanbul and Hong Kong are particularly good examples to study because of the interweaving artistic, actionist and political activist movements that have increasingly been taking root there over the past few years. The research project builds on the results of the projects entitled Institutions of Critique? Hegemonie und Kritik im künstlerischen Feld 1+2 (Hegemony and criticism in the art field 1+2) – in particular the interrelation between artistic/curatorial practice as a critical method of knowledge engineering – but is not a continuation of them.
Image: Detail of Hubert Fanthommes' photography of the hanging of the “La Liberté guidant le peuple” painting by Eugène Delacroix (after its marking by a visitor and a following restauration) at Louvre-Lens, under the careful survey of the director of the collection of paintings Vincent Pomarède, 22 November 2012. © Paris Match