“Did you say ‘pig,’ or ‘fig’?” said the cat. “I said ‘pig,’” replied Alice, “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly; you make one quite giddy.”
“All right,” said the cat, and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice, “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!”
—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
CONCEPTUAL ART RESEMBLES LITERATURE only superficially. What it really characterizes is a decided shift in sensory ratios. As a result Conceptualism poses a paradox: Can art free itself from the effects of the page in type only by adopting the printed form?
The problem with vulgar McLuhanism is that it makes more sense than any refined theory of media. Our civilization, according to McLuhan, was “founded upon isolation and domination of society by the visual sense.”1 Thus printing is tied to the limits of perspectival space. He hypothesizes that in the last century vestigial illusionism has slowly been supplanted by the synesthesia of “tactile space,” culminating most recently in a desire for total environmental involvement or, specifically, a “reality high.” For McLuhan, reality is more than the immediate environment; it is extended by “field space” or all the electronic devices that provide global awareness. Moreover since field space is pervasive, invisible, and non-causal, it makes no logical separation between the mind of the perceiver and the environment. “Live in your head” means that the printed page is to Conceptualism what the picture plane is to illusionistic Realism: an unavoidable belaboring of the point, inelegant communication. Printed proposals are make-do art; Conceptual art’s ideal medium is telepathy. Analagously, at the present time conversational computer programs function through typewriter terminals; eventually computer communication will be verbal or direct neural relay. Notably, no one considers a terminal print-out to be literature.
Reasons for the emergence of Conceptualism vary in complexity and deal mainly with the historical development of art. They range from Joseph Kosuth’s functional reductivism to the practical consideration that gallery and museum exhibitions are increasingly planned, not through the selection of existent work, but on the basis of submitted proposals, implying that the artist’s private or gestural relationship to his materials is secondary and that intellectual cognizance is in many cases adequate. Quite often execution is redundant or at best for public elaboration.
A yet more basic motive may underlie Conceptualism. The biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy writes of a growing schism between biological drives and symbolic values. One of the reasons for rapid technological change is increased proficiency in symbol manipulation, in philosophy, art, religion, literature, mathematics, and various forms of scientific logic. Belief in symbols and ideologies compels man to commit acts ordinarily against his biological well-being. We seem to be the captives of our symbol-making capabilities and their inconsistencies, as evident in such areas as the religious stand on birth control, the dynamics of thermonuclear war, economic perpetuation of harmful industrial effects, and cases for and against computer data banks. As Bertalanffy states, “The symbolic world of culture is basically unnature, far transcending and often negating biological nature, drives, usefulness, and adaptation.”2 Beyond a fundamental reevaluation of the meaning of art, Conceptualism inadvertently asks, “What is the nature of ideas? How are they disseminated and transformed? And how do we free ourselves of the confusion between ideas and their correlations with physical reality?”
“In a preliterate society,” says McLuhan, “art serves as a means of merging the individual and the environment, not as a means of training perception of the environment.”3 Conceptual art presents us with a super-spatial grasp of the environment, one that deals with time, processes, and interrelated systems as we experience them in everyday life, forcing involvement with non-art habits of perception and thus fulfilling both McLuhan’s models.
Last spring at the Bern Kunsthalle exhibition When Attitudes Become Form, not only was there considerable interpenetration between the works of young European and American artists but also among artists involved with objects, arrangements, outdoor situations, and conceptual ideas. As a prime antecedent, Duchamp’s post-Cubist output is conceptually oriented, while a few of the proposals in his book, Marchand du sel, are purely conceptual works. Among the New Realists of Europe in the late 1950s both Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni clearly produced examples of Conceptual art. A good case could be made to support the fact that the currents of Conceptualism began considerably earlier in Europe than in the United States—quite likely because Arrierican exuberance and invention supported the notion of art objects a decade longer. Joseph Kosuth stresses that the present American tendency had its impetus from the thinking of Jasper Johns, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Edward Kienholz, Carl Andre and Donald Judd; and in the same article he gives the names of about fifteen artists, some of whom have been working in the conceptual area since 1966.4
But only by the end of 1968 did the organizing and public relations ability of Seth Siegelaub—through the artists Barry, Huebler, Weiner and Kosuth—place Conceptual art in a context worthy of notice. (No doubt by 1968 there were more than a few artists working with extra gallery proposals or nominally conceptual ideas, so in talking about those exclusively connected with Siegelaub it is only fair to mention that the work of many other conceptual artists may be of equal significance.)
Of interest are the issues of 0 to 9 (after the third issue) published by Vito Acconci in New York City. Since the end of 1968 these have dealt less with literature and poetry and more with street art and language as plastic art. Acconci has also published some valuable statements on conceptualist theory.
Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, and Lawrence Weiner were originally connected with Siegelaub’s Gallery and with his efforts as a private dealer. Prior to 1968 Weiner and Barry were systemic painters with no real connection to Huebler, a Minimalist sculptor. They agree this changed with two joint symposiums and group shows held early in 1968. The first took place at Bradford Junior College in Bradford, Massachusetts, in February. Barry, Weiner and Carl Andre were involved in structuring a series of indoor situations. A similar symposium and outdoor exhibition (“exterior situations”) held that May at Windham College in Putney, Vermont, began an exchange of ideas between these three participating artists and Huebler. None of the pieces were transportable, yet they were structured so as not to impose upon the environment. Andre worked with bales of hay, Barry with nylon monofilament strung from buildings, and Weiner with string and stakes hammered into the ground. When his string was cut by irate students Weiner realized that the piece did not have to exist, that its effect had been in suggesting it. Earlier at Bradford Barry had placed small painted panels throughout the rooms. These were replaced at Windham by four nylon mono-filaments stretched between the two main buildings (about 300 feet) all the same height (about 30 feet). Barry’s piece defined “specific location,” Weiner’s piece was planned (and conceived) before Windham and could have been made anywhere.
At the time of the Bradford show and symposium Huebler was still working in formica sculpture, with plans for some earthworks which were never made. Later that winter Huebler attended a seminar on art and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reacting negatively when one artist on the panel suggested that he would like to build a sculpture larger than the Empire State Building. For Huebler these forays into giantism began to take on some of the gestural assertiveness of the last stages of Abstract Expressionism. Making one’s autobiographical presence felt on the landscape seemed to be a dying gasp. By May and the Windham exhibition Huebler realized that his thinking was clearly at cross purposes with his sculpture. That summer he and Seth Siegelaub worked together preparing a catalog that appeared in November, representing entirely new work.
Early in 1968 Joseph Kosuth met Siegelaub through his friendship with Weiner. Siegelaub began to help Kosuth financially in the spring of 1968. Gradually Siegelaub’s time and interest were taken up by these four men—at the expense of some of the other artists under his commercial sponsorship. Kosuth’s involvement with Conceptual art had begun two or three years before this. As early as 1965 he sensed that “organic and geometric shapes were used up” and started to experiment with formless and ephemeral materials. The same year, after giving up painting, he produced a 5-foot pane of glass, followed by his One of Three Chairs. In 1966 and 1967 the artist made a series of photostats with definitions of water and hydrogen compounds. Kosuth began to view abstraction as a philosophical-linguistical problem, no longer dominated by visual-formal considerations. However, an interesting aspect of art writing is that whenever a critic fails to understand new work the safest approach is to label it a “Dada gesture,” and let it go at that: Kosuth’s work met this reception. That the levels of abstraction embodied by words could legitimately challenge the notion of art escaped just about everybody. Late in 1968, Kosuth stopped making enlarged photostats of dictionary definitions when he found that these were interpreted as a kind of Pop mannerist painting.
“My first catalog was for Doug’s November show,” Siegelaub notes. “We worked on it all summer, organizing the information so that it could all be contained in the catalog . . . there was no public space . . . they (the works—not the catalogs) were lying around in book mailing envelopes for protection. Some sold but I didn’t think in terms of what it would bring in. It was too much work for that . . . I was just interested in doing that kind of show.”
The following January (1969) Siegelaub organized an exhibition in a rented office building for the four artists: Barry, Weiner, Kosuth and Huebler. “As an organizer I believe in giving every man the same situation, same money, same pages in a catalog, and the same physical space. I asked them how they wanted to show their work—that’s how it was done—and discussions continued for one and a half to two months. We decided on the catalog format: four pages for each man, two pages each of photographs, one page statement, and one page listing the works shown. There was also a presentation on the walls of two works by each artist. But in my mind the show existed quite completely in the catalog. After about a week and a half you really didn’t have to point out the room. It was used as an office.”
What is most surprising is the diversity in background and philosophy among the four artists. In 1968 Seth Siegelaub sponsored a small book by Lawrence Weiner entitled Statements. Many of these statements embody works already undertaken by the artist, and an introductory acknowledgement reads: “Certain specific statements are reproduced by kind permission of the people who own them.” Some of the statements include acts which have had their residual effects upon more formally oriented artists:
“One sheet of plywood secured to the floor or wall”
“One standard dye marker thrown into the sea”
“Common steel nails driven into the floor at points designated at time of installation”
“An amount of paint poured directly upon the floor and allowed to dry”
“A series of stakes set in the ground at rectangular intervals to form a rectangle. Twine strung from stake to stake to demark a grid”5
These are general proposals and not necessarily the most elegant. At the time of the statements Weiner applied the following stipulations to the art, but chose not to print them in the book:
“The artist may construct the piece
The piece may be fabricated
The piece need not be built
Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist, the decision as to condition rests with receiver upon the occasion of receivership”6
Once a piece is stated publicly it exists, according to Weiner. Yet the path by which Weiner arrived at this conclusion is not so evident. “In the fall of 1959 I went to California from New York to build some structures and think. A year later in California I created a series of fields, of craters formed by high explosive charges. It was by far my best art, but since they were set off in a state park, I was caught. There being no malicious forethought involved, I was given a suspended sentence and a $20 fine. My major interest at that time was in the nature of the specific craters formed. I went back to New York confused. My problem was a hangup on specifics . . . and so I made innumerable specifics . . . Back in New York I worked on a vast series of canvases—all the same subject, but different sizes, colors, and materials. But somehow it wasn’t getting across . . . or connecting. Finally I realized I was dealing with the idea of the explosions or paintings—forgetting specifics. So the new series of my works are traces of what an artist does. Somehow the shit residue of art history made me make paintings and sculptures. But now I feel no contact with or relevance or need of a place in art history.”
Robert Barry’s works have adopted the most drastically ephemeral quality—he has moved from placed paintings to space-defining materials and energy forms to conceptions about conceptions. One of the most noted of the second types was a collection of works in the artist’s bare studio: 1) 1400 KH2 Carrier Wave (AM), 1968 2) 1100 KH2 Carrier Wave (AM), 1968 3) 98 MH2 Carrier Wave (FM), 1968 4) 40 KH2, 8.25 MM Ultrasonic Installation, 1968 5) Phosphorous-32 Radiation Piece, 1969 6) Cesium-137 Radiation Piece, 1969 7) Electro-magnetic Energy Field, E = 110V, 6.2 meters 2, 1969.
Barry is quite reluctant to indulge in esthetic speculation about the nature of his art. When asked for photographs, he replied, “I can’t think of any way to use photographs or anything visual in relation to some of the recent work. It doesn’t have a place, or the place is unknown.” Some of these include a proposal sent to the Institute of Contemporary Art in London: “Something which is very near in place and time, but not yet known to me.” Another sent to Leverkusen, West Germany: “Something which affects me and my world, but is unknown to me.”
For the “PROSPECT ’69” at the Kunsthalle in Dusseldorf this past October Barry presented his work in the following form:
Questioner: Which is your piece for PROSPECT ’69?
Robert Barry: The piece consists of the ideas that people will have from reading this interview.
Q.: Can this piece be shown?
R.B.: The piece in its entirety is unknowable because it exists in the minds of so many people. Each person can really know only that part which is in his own mind.
Q.: Is the unknown an important element in your work?
R.B.: I use the unknown because it’s the occasion for possibilities, and because it’s more real than anything else. Some of my works consist of forgotten thoughts, or things in my unconscious. I also use things which are not communicable, are unknowable or are not yet known. The pieces are actual but not concrete. . . .7
As far as the receiver is concerned, some of these newer works involve a conceptual process which triggers off a dilemma known in philosophy as logical regression, or a series of propositions that have no beginning and thus provoke circularity. But this cannot be said of some current works: “I’m doing some gallery shows in Europe in December and January . . . Exact dates at Sperone in Turin and Konrad Fischer in Dusseldorf have not yet been set. All the shows will consist of closing the galleries during the exhibitions.”8
In some ways Douglas Huebler’s approach involves a more familiar esthetic, making it less rarefied but perhaps of greater interest. He relies upon documents and techniques which, perhaps more than the others, Huebler feels are necessary to substantiate the existence of the work. These are broken up into various systems which are titled and numbered as “Duration,” “Location,” and “Variable Pieces.” Examples were first included in Huebler’s November, 1968, catalog. The artist specifies that all geographical, temporal, and process lines of demarcation limit only the conceptual boundaries of a piece; but since most of Huebler’s art is embedded in ongoing reality, he places no physical boundaries around a work’s beginning and end or actual location.
Problems of boundaries and limitations naturally affect participants but particularly affect any collector interested in Huebler’s work. Through the history of art there have been certain tacit relationships between dealer, audience, collector, and artist, establishing degrees of control over the production and dissemination of a work of art. These however break down with Conceptualism, and part of an art work becomes the assignment of new control variables over the life duration of a piece. Certainly this has been the tendency in the last ten years. All previous notions of an object’s intrinsic qualities have been challenged to the point where it would be the simplest matter to reproduce some recent objects with or without the artist’s consent. As Huebler states, “Anyone could reproduce an Andre or a Flavin for instance. What would he have? I believe that the sensibility behind a work of art should be broadly accessible. At the same time I believe that the collector is someone who enters into a conspiracy with the artist that is beyond the issue of accessibility, an agreement that the sensibility is an important one. This agreement may be really what the owner has that is ‘original’.”9
It might be added that the artist is still looking toward the collector as a source of legitimacy, if not as a means of sustaining solvency. The artist is asking the collector to pay for ownership; but in the case of most Conceptual art, the commodity is pure information. Here a dilemma appears. The point of owning information is to control knowledge and use of it. Efficacious ownership of art objects depends upon sophisticated dissemination of information about those objects. What does it mean to own a piece of information that must be in the public domain to exist as art?
Among Huebler’s first pieces, Duration Piece #2 consisted of a series of photographs of tire impressions made by automobiles running over a fine line of sand across a highway. New York Boston Exchange Shape dealt with a large-scale hexagonal form superimposed on downtown areas of Boston and New York so that the corners of the hexagons provide site locations for photographs. In regard to such photographs Huebler notes that, “I use the camera as a ‘dumb’ copying device that only serves to document whatever phenomena appear before it through the conditions set by a system. No ‘esthetic’ choices are possible. Other people often make the photographs. It makes no difference. What may be documented that has appearance in the world actually is returned to itself as only that and as nothing that has to do with the piece.”10
Previous art usually demanded exacting control—artistry—over the parameters of production. But gradually art has become a matter of releasing control over these parameters, permitting exposure of an art situation to different intervening forces. What happens as the structure of an artist’s conception is modified by unpredictable social processes is, in effect, a part of the art statement.
In another Huebler work, Duration Piece #13, one hundred United States dollar bills were listed by serial number and put back into circulation throughout the world. In 25 years from last July (1994) the serial numbers will be reprinted in an international art publication. $1,000 will be paid to any bearer who presents a dollar bill with a correct serial number to Huebler. This will be completed with the announcement in an art publication of all the Federal Reserve Notes actually redeemed. Part of what is crucial are the social, economic and historical conjectures which the artist brings to bear by subjecting himself to the remote possibility of grave economic loss. One could speculate that the proposal might be found absurd 25 years from now, in which case documentation of such crucial change would also complete the work.
A problem that arises is that there are pieces and aspects of pieces of Huebler’s which cannot be discussed because of their on-going nature, or because secrecy is necessary to preserve the integrity of their evolution. With this essay appears the proposal and a photograph of a “wanted” bulletin for Duration Piece #15. Here intervention in an emotionally charged social situation is very calculated and tied to the purchase of the piece. In considering Duration Piece #15, either to buy it or to collect the reward or to simply think about it, one is placed in a strangely questionable relationship with the fugitive—as Weiner mentioned in another context, “this is Genet’s existentialism, not Sartre’s or Camus’s.” The art game aspect is very much undermined and it automatically forces the issue of social values. In the “PROSPECT ’69” interview Huebler elaborated on this:
The essential quality of existence concerns where one is at any instant in time: that locates everything else. Location, as a phenomenon of space and time, has. been transposed by most art forms into manifestations of visual equivalence: that is, as an experience located at the ends of the eyeballs. I am interested in transposing location directly into “present” time by eliminating things, the appearance of things, and appearance itself. The documents carry out that role using language, photographs and systems in time and location.11
In many ways Joseph Kosuth’s “pure” Conceptualism is the most challenging and intellectually demanding. It is doubtful that one might develop a sensitivity for Kosuth’s art without first reading his very important three-part essay, “Art after Philosophy.”12 As the artist sees it, art’s “art function” or ability to clearly reflect upon itself as philosophical endeavor, became apparent coincidentally with the early 20th-century demise of metaphysical speculation. He explains why decoration and taste provide a critical basis for much contemporary art, as morphological considerations define art itself for Formalism (i.e. what does not look like painting and sculpture most certainly cannot be art). Hence Kosuth places a very high priority on art as a means of continual redefinition, an act of which Formalism is incapable because a priori it knows what art is. “Artists question the nature of art by presenting new propositions as to art’s nature. And to do this one cannot concern oneself with the handed-down ‘language’ of traditional art, as this activity is based on the assumption that there is only one way of framing art propositions.”13 Conceptually speaking, the “value” of a work of art cannot lie in its physical presence, but only in its power to generate concepts and thus influence other artists.
Drawing parallels between art and language, Kosuth defines art as a series of analytic propositions which have no value as information outside the context of art. Here his investigations into linguistical analysis and Logical Positivism are crucial. Like logic and mathematics, Kosuth views art as a system of tautologies which, while self-contained, depend upon the context of the real world for social meaning but not verification. He doubts the validity of phenomenological considerations which have been attached to the art experience. Certainly these, he states, have been more than duplicated by the normal environment. This “calling attention to,” or any private motivation of the artist, can never replace the “art function.” Kosuth sees this as art’s inherent function of not performing service—whether philosophical, decorative, or entertainment—but remaining relevant only to itself.
During the past four years the display and entertainment value of Kosuth’s art has been considerably reduced, inviting disinterest from viewers—as witness the tiny elegant line of labels on the walls of the 557,087 show in Seattle or in the Art by Telephone show in Chicago. Few gallery-goers want to read a series of typed riddles or thesaurus entries. It is as if Kosuth is saying, “Since my art is not about all the things which art is not about, it is art.” By the artist’s functional definition of art, he places art on a metalevel, one that transcends the Duchampian negation of visual esthetic criteria. In blunt terms he insists that he is an artist rather than a philosopher by virtue of his productions (or as he calls them “art investigations”) which are incredibly trivial, in iconic terms, but which may achieve validity only through their eventual effect on future art.
Kosuth’s attempt to escape identification with iconic art is seemingly preposterous, until one realizes that the weight of his argument depends upon having shows which are known to have taken place. After the mounted photostats, he entered his thesaurus categories into various media: magazines, newspapers, television, billboards, etc. In many cases only a catalog notation defines a work’s existence. If newspaper entries are shown in a museum, they are most likely presented as a pile of newspapers on a table. As he explains, “All my work exists when it is conceived because the execution is irrelevant to the art . . . the art is for an art context only . . .”14 Of course an irony of Kosuth’s work is that he is forced to produce it physically. The reification is invariably mistaken for art. As pure conceptual investigation Kosuth implies that his subject matter is substantially irrelevant, but that its assumptions provide meaning or context as art. By the act of giving definitions (tautologies) for terms other than “art,” Kosuth creates art and therefore functionally defines it.
The writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein are a prime basis for Kosuth’s methodology. Like Wittgenstein’s relation to philosophy, Kosuth stresses art as a process rather than as a set of truths, subject matter and method mirroring each other in any set of propositions. Kosuth’s dictionary definitions and thesaurus categories (his synopsis of categories) are predefined and doled out for each art exhibition until they are completed, purposely severing all connection between conception, execution, and presentation. The inadequacy of such orthodox reference materials is demonstrated by purposely taking them out of the context of ordinary language use. All of this corresponds to one of the most debated theses in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: “Propositions cannot represent logical form: it is mirrored in them. What finds its reflection in language, language cannot represent. What expresses itself in language, we cannot express by means of language. Propositions show the logical form of reality. They display it.”15
Kosuth has made a unique and valuable contribution to the dialectic of modernist art. In so doing he poses a rigorous alternative to the existing morphological idealist model. No artist involved in more than craft can fail to understand this—if he hopes to surmount Kosuth’s challenge. In this respect Wittgenstein observed about the propositions of his Tractatus: “My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them.”16
The Conceptualists have objectified the dissemination of art information—that is to say, the best have rethought the artist’s role relative to media, museums, and collectors. This is the result of not centering interest on content but, as in information theory, on the nature of information itself. Questions of information’s predictability, improbability, complexity, message structure, dissemination, delay, and distortion are factors not only for consideration, but for a work’s viability as art competing with other art forms. Optical art, Kinetic art, Luminous art, and various types of environmentalism have sought to convey standard art information by new technical means. These were usually attempts to break out of an exhausted format, but with little thought given to the relationship between methods of transmission and the art context. One of the transcending realizations of Conceptualism is that any form of energy can or may be used to convey art information, that the sender or carrier is in fact a secondary problem to that of formulating a significant reason for its use.
Redundancy is a necessary property of all communication systems. Uniqueness in a message is created in part through redundancy. But Conceptualism has reduced the need for redundancy in art information. This was clearly shown by its articulation of large-scale works and environments, often minimized to a few descriptive directions. The fact that such directions do not have to be carried out leads to a further decrease in redundancy. But the Conceptualists implicitly understand that the power in art today resides in the mass duplication of data; hence they stress redundancy of the message itself rather than its content. A message’s uniqueness on the other hand is in direct proportion to the needs, desires, and anticipations of the party receiving the message. Uniqueness as a consequence is not defined in art by deviation or strangeness. All important art formulates need—this creates uniqueness, as with all successful advertising.
Conceptualism demonstrates that art as communication has much of the unverifiable consistency of a rumor. Unlike direct mechanical communication, the content of a rumor is not a specific body of information transmitted at the highest practical rate of fidelity, but rather something “shaped, reshaped and reinforced in a succession of communicative acts. . . . A rumor may be regarded as something that is constantly being constructed; when the communicative activity ceases, the rumor no longer exists.”17 Art functions not unsimilarly. Thus if and when artists cease their activities, all previous art will automatically disappear—as art.
Perhaps the future of Conceptual art is tied more to its power for influencing artistic behavior than to any success as commodity art, although Seth Siegelaub certainly does not think that way: “My influence in relation to the artists seems magnified because no one else was interested in this kind of art . . . but this is no longer true. My interest as a businessman isn’t in circumventing the commercial system. I’ve just made pages of a book comparable to space (art situational space). Artists having their work go out as printed matter can be just as viable as selling Nolands.” Yet in a more profound sense Siegelaub sees the effect that media and business have upon Conceptual art as idea. “Anything, any person, any idea has a focus . . . which is located in the world . . . just radiating outwards, losing strength at the edges. Watering down comes with the intermediaries between the artist and the public. That’s what culture’s about . . . culture is probably about watering down.”
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NOTES
1. McLuhan, Marshall and Parker, Harley, Through The Vanishing Point: Space in Poetry and Painting. New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968, p. xxiv.
2. Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, Robots, Men and Minds, New York: George Braziller, 1967, p. 27.
3. McLuhan and Parker, p. 243.
4. Kosuth, Joseph, “Art After Philosophy: Part I,” in Studio International, Oct., 1969, pp. 160–161.
5. Weiner, Lawrence, Statements, New York: Seth Seigelaub, 1968, pages unnumbered.
6. Weiner, Lawrence, 5 Works, exhibition catalog Nova Scotia: Nova Scotia College of Art, April, 1969. Pages unnumbered.
7. Barry, Robert, “PROSPECT ’69”, exhibition catalog statement, Dusseldorf, West Germany: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1969, p. 26.
8. From a letter by the artist to the author, November, 1969.
9. Huebler, Douglas, “PROSPECT ’69”, exhibition catalog statement, Oct. 1969, p. 26.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Kosuth, Joseph, “Art After Philosophy: Parts I, II and III” 1969 in Studio International; October, November, and December,1969
13. Kosuth, Joseph, “Art After Philosophy: Part II”, p. 135.
14. Kosuth, Joseph “PROSPECT ’69”, exhibition catalog statement, p. 27.
15. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosbphicus (1961 edition translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness) (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul) p. 51.
16. Fann, K. T. (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man and His Philosophy, New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1969, p. 381.
17. Shibutani, Tamotsu, Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor, Indianapolis, New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1966, p. 9.
