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Scratched photograph of the cover of *Art-Language*, Vol.3 No.1, 1974.

Art & Language is an English conceptual artists' collaboration that has undergone many changes since it was created around 1967. The group was founded by artists who shared a common desire to combine intellectual ideas and concerns with the creation of art, and included many Americans.

From May 1969, the group published in England the magazine Art-Language: The Journal of Conceptual Art.

History

The Art & Language group was founded around 1967 in the United Kingdom by Terry Atkinson (b. 1939), David Bainbridge (b. 1941), Michael Baldwin (b. 1945) and Harold Hurrell (b. 1940).^[1] The group was critical of what was considered mainstream modern art practices at the time. In their work conversations, they created gallery art and presented these ideas in a journal as part of their discussions.^[2]

The first issue of Art-Language: The Journal of Conceptual Art (Volume 1, Number 1) was published in May 1969.^[3]

In 1972, the group created Index 01, consisting of 350 texts placed inside 8 filing cabinets. These texts were "indexed according to their logical and ideological (in)compatibility", to assert a "critical inquiry into art practice as an art activity in itself".^[4] The Art & Language group that exhibited in the international Documenta 5 exhibitions of 1972 included Atkinson, Bainbridge, Baldwin, Hurrell, Pilkington, Rushton, and Joseph Kosuth, the American editor of Art-Language.^[5] The work consisted of a filing system of material published and circulated by Art & Language members.^[6] π

Projects

Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden co-founded The Society for Theoretical Art and Analysis in New York in the late 1960s. They joined Art & Language in 1970–71.^[7] During this time, Sarah Charlesworth and Christine Kozlov became affiliated with the group.^[8]^[9] New York Art & Language became fragmented after 1975 because of disagreements concerning principles of collaboration.^[10]

In the early years of the 1970s, several artists joined the collective, including Ian Burn, Michael Corris, Charles Harrison, Preston Heller, Joseph Kosuth, Andrew Menard, Mel Ramsden and Terry Smith,^[11] and David Rushton.^[12] During this time the group produced numerous theoretical writings and art works.^[11]

During the mid-1970s the group was in conflict during a time when conceptual art had lost some of its "critical bearing" and was being institutionalized. The conflicts among the collective existed within the context of global socio-political turmoil and economic crisis as well as the "revival of modernism."^[13]

By the end of the decade, the only members who remained were Baldwin, Harrison and Ramsden, with the occasional participation of Mayo Thompson and the group Red Krayola with whom several recordings were made.^[11]^[14] Ian Burn returned to Australia, joining Ian Milliss, a conceptual artist who had begun work with trade unions in the early 1970s, in becoming active in Union Media Services, a design studio for social and community initiatives and the development of trade unions.^[15]^[16]

In 1986, Art & Language was nominated for the Turner Prize.^[17]

Art & Language and the Jackson Pollock Bar collaborated for the first time in January 1995,^[18] during the "Art & Language & Luhmann" symposium, organized by the Contemporary Social Considerations Institute (Institut für soziale Gegenwartsfragen) of Freiburg.^[19] The 3-day symposium included speakers such as Catherine David, who prepared the Documenta X, and Peter Weibel, artist and curator. There was also a theoretical installation of an Art & Language text produced in playback by the Jackson Pollock Bar. The installation was interpreted by five German actors playing the roles of Jack Tworkow, Philip Guston, Harold Rosenberg, Robert Motherwell and Ad Reinhardt.^[20]^[21]^[22]

An archive of papers relating to "New York Art & Language" are held at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.^[23]

Critical reception

In 1999, Art & Language exhibited at PS1 MoMA in New York, with a major installation entitled The Artist Out of Work. This was a recollection of Art & Language's dialogical and other practices, curated by Michael Corris and Neil Powell.^[24] In a negative appraisal of the exhibition, art critic Jerry Saltz wrote, "A quarter century ago, 'Art & Language' forged an important link in the genealogy of conceptual art, but next efforts have been so self-sufficient and obscure that their work is now virtually irrelevant."^[25]

In 2002, Beatriz Herráez, writing for Flash Art, described the Art & Language retrospective exhibition, Too Dark to Read, as "declaration meant to ‘clarify’ the group’s practice" as a method that is located in "the discursive quality of its ideational system and never in isolated works."^[26]

Adrian Searle wrote in 2014: "Art & Language is as much as anything a conversation from which work arises and goes off on its own tangent, referencing itself, dragging Art & Language’s compendious history with it as it goes. Their's is an art that makes and unmakes itself, eats and regurgitates itself."^[27]

Members and associates

Members and associates include Terry Atkinson,^[2] David Bainbridge,^[2] Michael Baldwin,^[2]^[4] Kathryn Bigelow,^[28] Ian Burn,^[11] Sarah Charlesworth^[8],Charles Harrison,^[11] Michael Corris^[11],Preston Heller,^[11] Graham Howard,^[29] Harold Hurrell^[2],Joseph Kosuth,^[11] Christine Kozlov,^[9] Nigel Lendon,^[30] Andrew Menard,^[11] Philip Pilkington,^[31] Neil Powell,^[24] Mel Ramsden,^[2]^[4] David Rushton,^[12] Terry Smith,^[11] and Mayo Thompson and Red Crayola.^[14]

Public collections

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.^[32]
Arts Council of Great Britain, United Kingdom.^[33]
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.^[34]
Centro de Arte Contemporàneo de Malaga, Malaga, Spain.^[35]
Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art, Montsoreau, France.^[36]
FRAC Haute Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen, France.^[37]
FRAC Languedoc Roussillon, Montpellier, France.^[38]
Les Abattoirs, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Toulouse, France.^[39]
Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France.^[40]
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona Spain.^[41]
MAMCO, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Geneva, Switzerland.]^[42]
Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, Zurich, Switzerland.^[43]
Musée d'art moderne, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, France.^[44]
Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung, Vienna, Austria.^[45]
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA.^[46]
Museum of Modern Art, New York.^[47]
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.^[48]
Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium.^[49]
Tate Modern, London.^[50]

References

^ Neil Mulholland, The Cultural Devolution: art in Britain in the late twentieth century, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003, p165. ISBN 0-7546-0392-X
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "Art Term: Art & Language". Tate Museum. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language". Archived from the original on 23 January 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
^ ^a ^b ^c Morton, Tom (4 April 2002). "Art & Language: Musee d'Art Moderne Lille Metropole, France". Frieze (66). Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ Guasch, Anna María (11 February 2011). Arte y archivo, 1920-2010: Genealogías, tipologías y discontinuidades (in Spanish). Ediciones AKAL. ISBN 9788446038146.
^ Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Trish Cashen, Hazel Gardiner, Digital Visual Culture: Theory and Practice, Intellect Books, 2009, p104. ISBN 1-84150-248-0
^ "Des mondes à penser pour les crocodiles soumis" (in French). 30 April 2002. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
^ ^a ^b Robinson, Christine. "Sara Charlesworth: Image Language". Printed Matter. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ ^a ^b "Christine Kozlov". Aldrich Museum. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ Charles Green, The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism, UNSW Press, 2001, p48. ISBN 0-86840-588-4
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j "Art & Language, Britain". UBUWEB:Historical. Originally published in Aspen 8. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ ^a ^b "David Rushton / Art As Conceit". Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language: Illustrations for Art-Language" (PDF). Centre de Création Contemporaine Oliver Debré. September 2017. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ ^a ^b Young, Rob (2006). Rough Trade. Black Dog Publishing. ISBN 9781904772477.
^ "Annecdotes about Anonymity by Ian Milliss". joaap.org. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
^ Baumflek, David (July 2013). "Peripheral Visions: The Working Life of Ian Burn" (PDF). The Ivory Tower.
^ "Turner Prize 1986: Gilbert & George won the Turner Prize (Art & Language listed among the nominees)". Tate Britain. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ "Jackson Pollock Bar". ZKM: Center for art and media Karlsruhe. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ Institut für soziale Gegenwartsfragen, Freiburg i. Br., Kunstraum Wien (Hg.) , ed. (1997). Art & Language & Luhmann III. Wien: Passagen Verlag. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ Harrison, Charles (8 August 2003). Conceptual Art and Painting: Further Essays on Art & Language. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262582407.
^ "Jackson Pollock Bar | ZKM". zkm.de. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
^ "Art & Language en práctica". Fundació Antoni Tàpies (in European Spanish). Retrieved 13 August 2019.
^ "Michael Corris papers of the Art & Language New York Group, 1965–2002". Getty Research Institute Library Archives. Retrieved 4 March 2023. Papers and works relating to "New York Art & Language" are held at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
^ ^a ^b "The Artist Out of Work: Art & Language 1972–1981". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ Jerry Saltz, Seeing out loud: the Voice art columns, fall 1998-winter 2003, Geoffrey Young, 2003, p293. ISBN 1-930589-17-4
^ Herráez, Beatriz (December 2016). "Art & Language". Flash Art. Retrieved 7 March 2023.
^ Searle, Adrian (18 November 2014). "A life measured in tea towels: Jonathan Monk and the art that freezes time". Retrieved 10 March 2023.
^ Nicolas Rapold, "Interview: Kathryn Bigelow Goes Where the Action Is," The Village Voice, 23 June 2009. [1] Archived 22 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine Access date: 27 June 2009.
^ "Art-Language, 1971". National Gallery of Victoria. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ Lewis, Ruark (15 December 2021). "Nigel Lendon 1944-2021". Artlink Magazine. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language (Michael Baldwin, born 1945; Philip Pilkington, born 1949)". Tate Museum. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
^ "Secret Painting 1967-1968, Art & Language". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language". British Council, Visual Arts. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language Homes from Homes 1 2000 - 2001". Centre Pompidou. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
^ "Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga. (Málaga Centre for Contemporary Art)". Visit Malaga. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "The Château de Montsoreau-Museum of contemporary art, Loire Valley". Chateau de Montsoreau. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "FRAC Normandie Rouen: Collected Artists". ArtFacts. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "ART & LANGUAGE (Michaël BALDWIN et Terry ATKINSON)" (PDF). FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, Acquisitions 2014. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language". Les Abattoirs Musée - FRAC Occitainie Toulouse. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "ART & LANGUAGE Sighs Trapped by Liars 1-192 (Soupirs piégés par des menteurs 1-192) 1996 - 1997". Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ Palau, Maria. "Un tresor al Macba - 30 març 2011". El Punt Avui.
^ "Collection Catalog: Art & Language". Migros Museum of Contemporary Art. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language: Homes from Homes II". Migros Museum of Contemporary Art. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "Vingt-Quartre Heures de la Vie D'Une Femme: Collections du MAMC". Musée D'Art Moderne Et Contemporain. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language". Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language". Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
^ "Art & Language: Corrected Slogans 1976". Museum of Modern Art, New York. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "Art & Language: F works". National Gallery of Victoria. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ "Picasso's Guernica in the Style of Jackson Pollock Art & Language". Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ Tate. "Art & Language (Michael Baldwin, born 1945; Mel Ramsden, born 1944)". Tate.