John Baldessari’s “I will not make any more boring art,” was one art piece that made an impression on me. The idea of writing this same line over and over again deliberately contradicts the point of the sentence- to refrain from creating boring art. This is why I think this is such a powerful piece, because it raises an important question- what is “boring art?”
Claude Closky’s “The first thousand numbers in alphabetical order” caught my attention because of this idea on how we classify things. When most people think of the first thousand numbers, they think of them in order from least to greatest. But Closky puts them in order by how they are spelled, not how they are counted. You find yourself looking at it in a different way, and questioning what the concept of order really means.
Adrian Piper’s “Here and Now” is a simple grid, and in one of the squares it tells you how this square is position in relation to the other squares. I found this to be interesting because it brings up the question of how space is defined. He defines the square as being the third row from the bottom, where someone else might categorize it as being the six row from the top. It reminded me of the saying about the glass being half empty or half full, and it all comes down to how each person interprets something.
Elyse Mercedes
January 27th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Elyse Kluver Jan 27th, 2008
Robert Smithson: “A heap of Language,” This piece was more interesting to me because it had a visual element to it. In terms that it was written in a heap and the fact it was hand written. Some of the words were hard to read for the fact it was written by hand, but that made it more interesting to me because i had to think and stain to understand the phrase.
Robert Morris: “A Method of Sorting Cows,” Very interesting writing about exactly what it is titled. It was hard to understand and follow. The way it was written seemed it was written in some chronological order. What made the writing more interesting for me was it was hard to understand, so when trying to visualize what the writer was saying made my imagination go a little wild. Morris didn’t give an metaphors so it wasn’t meant to been visualize in one sense. Very odd indeed.
Joseph Kosuth: “Five words in Red Neon,” When writing or art just gets to the point, it is almost funny to me. I feel it is telling a joke or making fun or someone or something. Kosuth title for his piece was exactly what was written in red neon. It makes me repeat in my head “How original,” in a sarcastic way. I would have to respond by guessing Kosuth just wanted to make his writing and message very simple not to be read any further than what it says, there is no special meaning.
Evan Caminiti
January 27th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I was drawn to Gertrude Steins “five words in a line” and Joseph Kosuth’s “five words in red neon”. They capture the material nature of language that Dworkin discusses. These works break down words to just matter rather than ideas, or I suppose you could say into words that completely encompass a single idea without allowing more than a single idea. But that idea is void of meaning outside of its conceptual existence. This seeming absence of subject causes the reader to ponder the theoretical nature of words in an interesting way.
Robert Rauschenberg’s portrait of Iris Clert is great in the way it addresses subject and formalism. This reminds me of the idea of “artistic license” because of Rauschenberg’s attitude that whatever he says something is it is, damn it, even if that is not what it appears to be in visual form to anyone else.
Adrian Piper’s untitled 1968 work is entertaining because of the way it conveys that there are always many different ways to say the same thing. It makes me think about human nature because I believe that there are many aspects of human life where we are all the same, but we think we’re different. It would be fair to say we are all subjected to the same phenomena but we see it and think of it in different ways, so that completely change the meaning, but it would also be fair to say that because of who we are we don’t perceive the same phenomena. I also like this piece because it makes me think of how once the same word is said over and over again so many times it looses its meaning and just becomes sound, which can often be quite comedic.
cassandra
January 28th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Cassandra Sechler
01-28-08
-John Baldessani’s “I will not make any more boring art”
I like this piece because the artist is using a familiar elementary school blackboard punishment tactic to illustrate his concept. In the repeated statement, the viewer might find the piece redundant and, well, “boring–” but that is what makes the piece so clever and ironic.
-Robert Smithson’s “A heap of language”
In this piece the artist writes sentences on a large piece of graph paper that forms a pyramid, which gives what is written a different physicality. The focus is not necessarily on what the setences read (since it is sloppy cursive, some of it is hard to read) but what they form as a whole. The piece seems to connote to me the beauty and complexity of language and signs and how language can be manipulated to be read differently and perhaps incoherently.
-Adrien Piper’s “untitled” (1968)
This work seems to question the confines of language by breaking all the rules of grammar and proper sentence structure. It can be read every which way. And each way it is read tells the viewer to read it fom different angles. The piece is great in its chaos. The artist’s twist on the use of words and open sentence structure has a dizzying and dispelling effect on the viewer.
-I feel that the artists, in each piece that i chose, play with language in different ways. The pieces require the viewer to analyse them for their intellectual value. Each piece seems to transcend the classical use of romantic language as seen in poetry, etc.
magropp
January 28th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
About “The Cheshire Cat, Part I” (1972) by Howard Fried.
A supremely autobiographical piece, The Cheshire Cat consists of various subject-verb fragments beginning with the pronoun “I”, all of which are dated sometime between 1946 and 1959. The reader must contemplate each sentence fragment and make a evaluation. Like much conceptual art, the audience is very involved because it really is about the audience, not the artist. The author of this piece lets go of all of himself immediately after he has finished writing it (although it seems to be a character he is writing about, if he is indeed writing about anything at all). This is due to the overall vagueness of the piece; he has left most of it up to us to create. As the audience, we supplement the piece with our thinking about it. We fill in between the lines, the space that the author left blank. But the fact that the statements are apparently unrelated toys with our sense of whole. Our minds want the statements to work together, so we fill in the blank space, we jump to wild conclusions about what the author means by this or that, what was happening in his life (or the character’s life) at this or that point, etc. My favorite is “I assume adult characters”. A nugget of intense personality situated comfortably between “I am nine,” and “I drive a grand bird.” “I assume adult characters” gives rise to a sentiment that all of us probably feel at one point or another during our lives: the feeling of not belonging, of pretending to fit in, but not really getting it. But thats really just me filling in the meaning, isn’t it?
On Gertrude Stein’s “Five Words in a Line”
“Five Words in a Line” plays with the idea of writing. So often, our written words become completely convoluted, we search endlessly for the word with the perfect set of connotations. Does this word really say what I’m meaning to say? If I switch these two words, will the subtle meaning change dramatically? Stein notes this fact in her work because with this piece of writing she has said exactly what she wanted to say. No hidden meanings, no extensive connotations, no abstract metaphor. But is this really the case? The fact that we as critics are reading so much into these five words gives it hidden meanings, connotations, and metaphor. The very act of reading into this piece cancels out the simplicity, and turns it back on itself. Suddenly, the words spring to life and leap off the page, fueled by our thoughts. Meaning materializes out of thin air, where no one thought it could exist. How can these five words illustrate an entire story, an entire movement so well, when simple meaning of the combined letters barely even exists? To me this is the definition of Dworkin’s “non-expressive poetry.”
Douglas Huebler’s “Vertical Line” (1970)
Meaning. Huebler is shouting that word at the top of his lungs, as presses his full weight on the ruler and draws his vertical line. The line is a violent retort, more of a giant middle finger than a piece of writing. He is an angry man. Angry at the art world, for reading too deeply between the lines, but also angry at everyone else for not understanding him. He draws his vertical line in disgust. And while he draws it, he dares us to understand, or try. As with Stein, his seemingly meaningless essay illustrates so much more than a vertical line, it communicates the fact that the act of making art is conceptual, even if the art itself is not. Dworkin said “language as a material entity,” and this material line is obviously language; it has meaning, and therefore communicates. Just as language does.
Aya
January 28th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Vitto Acconci: “RE”
When I read the article “Analogy of conceptual writing,” I imagined conceptual writing as more complicated enumeration of words. However, “Re” was totally different how I thought. It was art in both way of visually and logically. The style Acconci used looked like handout style that teacher gives at school for kids to fill out. I somehow felt I wanted to find out what words to fill in the blanks. And as you read through, I felt writer’s mischievous feeling. It was fun to look at it and read.
Vitto Acconci: “READ THIS WORD”
Unlike his “RE,” it seemed to be made only for logical purpose. Those continuous sentences seemed to have no meaning at all. However, when I moved my eyes to word to word, I felt like I have been lost in maze. I wasn’t able to look at context, and only I could do was to follow the words. It was strange feeling.
John Baldessari “I will not make any more boring art”
When I looked at the work, I thought, “Oh, it’s boring!” The work made in bunch of cursive hand written lines of “I will not make any more boring art.” Since it was cursive hand writing, it wasn’t too boring to look at it and read. You would feel like to find any mistakes or spelled wrong words.
By reading the article “Analogy of conceptual writing,” I wasn’t sure what conceptual writing was. Through looking at those works, I started considering conceptual writing as the art work which made to entertain readers in meaning, sound, or sometimes visual way and it need much more preparation in brainstorm stage.
lauren mackey
January 28th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
-Vitto Acconci: “RE”
Honestly, the first thing that came to mind when I started to read this piece was the “Who’s On First” routine by Abbott and Costello. Then as I read further, and re-read, I saw that this was obviously more in depth than just a play on words gag. I feel that Acconci is trying to say that in speaking, the person talking says words, but in truth may really mean or imply something other than what was said, which Acconci strengthens by adding all the open parentheses (leaving things open to interpretation). The end thought reminds me of a misinterpreted email.
-Victor Burgin: “Any Moment” (1970)
I really like this piece because Burgin forces the reader to draw upon his/her own emotions and feelings given the absolute lack of them supplied in the writing itself. The methodical execution of this piece, similar to a questionnaire or quiz, perfectly exemplifies non-expressive poetry. No matter what, each reader identifies themself to this piece, for its a self reflection of sorts, which draws upon our own creativity.
-Robert Barry (1971)
I feel that this is the perfect answer to questions, thoughts, concerns, critiques etc.. about any written work. It reminds me of notes on papers in high school English classes where the teacher writes on your paper, “What does this stand for? Explain why you wrote this..” Its like finally being able to answer back “You wanna know why? Here!” Because its so impossible to explain or justify a piece of work with just one thought or word, its fitting for Barry to jot down his stream of consciousnesses. The list truly could go on longer…
ryanburmeister
January 29th, 2008 at 1:21 am
- Samuel Beckett, from Watt
At first glance I was intrigued and uncertain if there was really a reason to do more than skim through. The excerpt certainly stands out, and is a very bold idea in how it is presented. Actually reading through can be daunting from the psychological delirium that both enters you as you read it, as well as the characterizes the perspective following the character go about his repetitive insanity.
- George Brecht, “Word Event”
This is an interesting one. At first glance I had no conception of what was even going on. It didn’t strike me emotionally in any sense, which definitely places it into the collection well. The piece only begins to express itself with a little thought. The large period, labeled as an exit, marks the end of the “Word Event”. I see this as him expressing writing as a pure conceptual abstraction or process.
- Douglas Huebler, “Vertical Line”
What an impact. This piece hit me immediately with its modest form, a lone vertical line, and then upon further investigation the sentence brings the concept into full context, and instead of being drawn inward, I felt pulled out to the larger picture.
jennysharaf
January 30th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Conceptual art has stripped language of its romance and lyricism, presenting the viewer (who also takes on the role of subject) signs that are empty and demonstrate a “new new formalism”. With the grandeur of modernism off art’s shoulders, a new sense of plurality sets in. Anything goes and as the dematerialization of the art object ensues the word takes on a new sense of materiality. Words are objects within these peices and their history lies in an array of sources, creating a complex discourse. Deconstructing these influences is key. Beauty takes a backseat to heavy theory and explorations of semiotics.
John Baldessari, I Will Not Make Boring Art
I usually like John Baldessari, not because of his work but rather how he explains his work. This is a one liner and I understand it, but do not “get it”. It has a sense of materiality and repetition, which could be a reference to the loop that was important to this period of perfomance and video based peices. As also in the case of those, Baldessari’s peice falls short for me.
Robert Rauschenberg, Portrait of Iris Clert
“This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so”
The words here take of a physicality. The idea and object are one and the same. It is direct, while the rest of the paper leaves room for subjectivity. It seems that Rauschenberg is poking fun of the history of portraiture. Iris Clert is a famous gallery owner is Paris, representing such art greats as Picasso, Max Ernst, and Yves Klein. The ambiguity that Rauschenberg uses allow for many interpretations, drawing the viewer in to further investigate his intention.
Robert Smithson, A Heap of Language
Smithson uses random words that have no sense of narrative and structures them into a physical landscape of sorts. His words are objectified in this giant mass. A far cry from expressive poetry, this conceptual practice breaks down form and structure, deconstructs, recontrsucts, deconstructs, and so on.
chrisvogel
January 30th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
-Claude Closky: “The first thousand numbers classified in alphabetical order”
It’s literally the first thousand numbers spelled out phonetically, separated with comas, starting at 8. This seems bland to me but I think it suits the criteria in Dworkin’s article. I have more appreciation for work like this when I can recognize art as a process vs an installation.
-Gertrude Stein: “Five Words in a Line”
This reminds me of some of the smart-ass one-liners my grandpa would tell me when I was a kid. It’s the sentence “Five words in a line.” It’s a play on words that is bland to me bearing in mind it’s artistic regard. This is probably what Dworkin would describe as “a poetry of form.”
Michael Harvey: “One card from Michael Harvey’s White Papers”
I actually enjoyed this piece in that it has some fluidity and depth. It forces you to readjust your analysis to even absorb the words. As far as conceptual art goes, I feel I’m more drawn to pieces that physically make a statement or pose a question. I’m not so much a fan of work that presses the boundaries of what can or can’t be regarded as art or artistic form.
Kerry001
January 30th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Vito Acconci, “Read thes Word”
Acconci manages to make the reader very aware of the act of reading in this piece. So often we tune out the process itself, and simply jump our eyes from word to word and formulate a coherent idea in our minds. “Read this Word” reads like the process is undertaken; “READ THIS WORD THEN READ THIS WORD…” (Acconci). A surprising spin on using words with prior meaning to simply lead the reader by the nose through the meaningless paragraph.
Samuel Beckett “Watt”
This piece seems to focus on exploring an author’s power of perspective. In non-conceptual writing, authors cut down their hypothetical situations and environments to manageable lengths, like editing a film. In “Watt,” Beckett has placed a magnifying glass over the main character’s shoe situation and furniture placement. He manages, in doing so, to make obvious the limited perspective we as readers have when reading contemporary literature.
Howard Fried “Cheshire Cat”
Seemingly a chronological listing of activities, events, and personas over the 13 year span from 1946 to 1959. There does not seem to be any order to the events, jumping, for example, from “I leave…” to “I am an English horse.” The title implies a mysteriousness, an inconsistency, an ever-changing state. By taking small- and broad-themed snatches of everyday goings-on, we the reader get a kind of written time-laps camera image, though in words alone.
ducky87
January 31st, 2008 at 1:22 am
Samuel Beckett from “Watt”
This was one of the repetitive pieces I’ve ever read. Honestly, it started to give me a headache after a while. But on a bright note, the author was very accurate in portraying the character’s every move. Beckett wrote on every single movement his character made.
Christian Bok - “Ten Maps of Sardonic Wit”
I liked the poem. I liked how Bok linked his ideas with aspects of nature.
Taddea Oscuro (Jan. 1968)
The quote had alot of truth to it. Artists are inspired to create art, and sometimes art pieces becomes repetitive. Some start looking the same. So even though art isn’t thought to be formulaic or repetitive, in a way it is.
Jennytam
February 4th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I feel that Vito Acconci’s “RE” is a rather playful presentation of a conversation in which we are allowed to see only so much of it (or a cheeky one). On my first glance, it looks like an incomplete poem or script, where one person is doing all the talking. After actually reading it, it feels like there could be more than one person in a multi-person conversation. Thinking about it, I am reminded of how the Peanuts cartoons depict adults speaking: the audience hears some sounds that could be muffled talking, but no actual words, and the child is the one that the audience can understand because their words are clear.
The same playfulness (or maybe it is cynicism?) is also evident in “Read This Word”. At first glance, it seems like instructions (much like the key chain at Spencer’s gift stores that read “how to keep an idiot busy: turn this over… how to keep an idiot busy: turn this over…”) on how to view the piece. Reading it a few times made me realize how much power is held in words, and how passive (at least) I am when reading “instructions”. These simple instructions may not be just instructions. I haven’t had to double take at a set of instructions this easy since high school. There was this work sheet that looked like a quiz and all the teacher said was “Read the directions carefully before you start. Follow the directions carefully and quietly. When you are done, turn your paper face down (it only had one side) and sit quietly at your desk until the bell rings” Easy instructions. Just like “Read This Word”. Turns out it was a test to see how well one follows directions (funniest and easiest school test I ever took). Aside from the jab of being a sheep reader, the form of the piece is actually just as important to the piece as the repetition of the words and the order they are in; going back and counting out the lines now, I realize that I want to put the words “a ninth” at the very end, because there are now 9 lines. Tricky tricky.
Another cheeky artist that caught my attention was John Baldessari; his piece is titled “I will not make any more boring art”. And the piece consists of a complete paragraph consisting of the same phrase repeated over and over again (for 16 times by my count). I like the play on meanings in this piece, instead of the normal idea/phrase of “I like the play on words”. While the words them selves add up to one meaning, the piece says something completely different. To me, a boring piece of art is just a pretty face and no body (looks nice, but no meaning to it). At face value, it is boring art; someone’s not-so-pretty hand writing (looks kind of like mine…) of the same phrase repeated 16 times with no variation to meaning, form, color, background, or style. That said, there is a secondary meaning that is now visible due to the piece’s plainness. And it also reminds me of Bart from the “Simpsons” cartoons.
John Baldessari’s “I will not make any more boring art,” was one art piece that made an impression on me. The idea of writing this same line over and over again deliberately contradicts the point of the sentence- to refrain from creating boring art. This is why I think this is such a powerful piece, because it raises an important question- what is “boring art?”
Claude Closky’s “The first thousand numbers in alphabetical order” caught my attention because of this idea on how we classify things. When most people think of the first thousand numbers, they think of them in order from least to greatest. But Closky puts them in order by how they are spelled, not how they are counted. You find yourself looking at it in a different way, and questioning what the concept of order really means.
Adrian Piper’s “Here and Now” is a simple grid, and in one of the squares it tells you how this square is position in relation to the other squares. I found this to be interesting because it brings up the question of how space is defined. He defines the square as being the third row from the bottom, where someone else might categorize it as being the six row from the top. It reminded me of the saying about the glass being half empty or half full, and it all comes down to how each person interprets something.
Elyse Kluver Jan 27th, 2008
Robert Smithson: “A heap of Language,” This piece was more interesting to me because it had a visual element to it. In terms that it was written in a heap and the fact it was hand written. Some of the words were hard to read for the fact it was written by hand, but that made it more interesting to me because i had to think and stain to understand the phrase.
Robert Morris: “A Method of Sorting Cows,” Very interesting writing about exactly what it is titled. It was hard to understand and follow. The way it was written seemed it was written in some chronological order. What made the writing more interesting for me was it was hard to understand, so when trying to visualize what the writer was saying made my imagination go a little wild. Morris didn’t give an metaphors so it wasn’t meant to been visualize in one sense. Very odd indeed.
Joseph Kosuth: “Five words in Red Neon,” When writing or art just gets to the point, it is almost funny to me. I feel it is telling a joke or making fun or someone or something. Kosuth title for his piece was exactly what was written in red neon. It makes me repeat in my head “How original,” in a sarcastic way. I would have to respond by guessing Kosuth just wanted to make his writing and message very simple not to be read any further than what it says, there is no special meaning.
I was drawn to Gertrude Steins “five words in a line” and Joseph Kosuth’s “five words in red neon”. They capture the material nature of language that Dworkin discusses. These works break down words to just matter rather than ideas, or I suppose you could say into words that completely encompass a single idea without allowing more than a single idea. But that idea is void of meaning outside of its conceptual existence. This seeming absence of subject causes the reader to ponder the theoretical nature of words in an interesting way.
Robert Rauschenberg’s portrait of Iris Clert is great in the way it addresses subject and formalism. This reminds me of the idea of “artistic license” because of Rauschenberg’s attitude that whatever he says something is it is, damn it, even if that is not what it appears to be in visual form to anyone else.
Adrian Piper’s untitled 1968 work is entertaining because of the way it conveys that there are always many different ways to say the same thing. It makes me think about human nature because I believe that there are many aspects of human life where we are all the same, but we think we’re different. It would be fair to say we are all subjected to the same phenomena but we see it and think of it in different ways, so that completely change the meaning, but it would also be fair to say that because of who we are we don’t perceive the same phenomena. I also like this piece because it makes me think of how once the same word is said over and over again so many times it looses its meaning and just becomes sound, which can often be quite comedic.
Cassandra Sechler
01-28-08
-John Baldessani’s “I will not make any more boring art”
I like this piece because the artist is using a familiar elementary school blackboard punishment tactic to illustrate his concept. In the repeated statement, the viewer might find the piece redundant and, well, “boring–” but that is what makes the piece so clever and ironic.
-Robert Smithson’s “A heap of language”
In this piece the artist writes sentences on a large piece of graph paper that forms a pyramid, which gives what is written a different physicality. The focus is not necessarily on what the setences read (since it is sloppy cursive, some of it is hard to read) but what they form as a whole. The piece seems to connote to me the beauty and complexity of language and signs and how language can be manipulated to be read differently and perhaps incoherently.
-Adrien Piper’s “untitled” (1968)
This work seems to question the confines of language by breaking all the rules of grammar and proper sentence structure. It can be read every which way. And each way it is read tells the viewer to read it fom different angles. The piece is great in its chaos. The artist’s twist on the use of words and open sentence structure has a dizzying and dispelling effect on the viewer.
-I feel that the artists, in each piece that i chose, play with language in different ways. The pieces require the viewer to analyse them for their intellectual value. Each piece seems to transcend the classical use of romantic language as seen in poetry, etc.
About “The Cheshire Cat, Part I” (1972) by Howard Fried.
A supremely autobiographical piece, The Cheshire Cat consists of various subject-verb fragments beginning with the pronoun “I”, all of which are dated sometime between 1946 and 1959. The reader must contemplate each sentence fragment and make a evaluation. Like much conceptual art, the audience is very involved because it really is about the audience, not the artist. The author of this piece lets go of all of himself immediately after he has finished writing it (although it seems to be a character he is writing about, if he is indeed writing about anything at all). This is due to the overall vagueness of the piece; he has left most of it up to us to create. As the audience, we supplement the piece with our thinking about it. We fill in between the lines, the space that the author left blank. But the fact that the statements are apparently unrelated toys with our sense of whole. Our minds want the statements to work together, so we fill in the blank space, we jump to wild conclusions about what the author means by this or that, what was happening in his life (or the character’s life) at this or that point, etc. My favorite is “I assume adult characters”. A nugget of intense personality situated comfortably between “I am nine,” and “I drive a grand bird.” “I assume adult characters” gives rise to a sentiment that all of us probably feel at one point or another during our lives: the feeling of not belonging, of pretending to fit in, but not really getting it. But thats really just me filling in the meaning, isn’t it?
On Gertrude Stein’s “Five Words in a Line”
“Five Words in a Line” plays with the idea of writing. So often, our written words become completely convoluted, we search endlessly for the word with the perfect set of connotations. Does this word really say what I’m meaning to say? If I switch these two words, will the subtle meaning change dramatically? Stein notes this fact in her work because with this piece of writing she has said exactly what she wanted to say. No hidden meanings, no extensive connotations, no abstract metaphor. But is this really the case? The fact that we as critics are reading so much into these five words gives it hidden meanings, connotations, and metaphor. The very act of reading into this piece cancels out the simplicity, and turns it back on itself. Suddenly, the words spring to life and leap off the page, fueled by our thoughts. Meaning materializes out of thin air, where no one thought it could exist. How can these five words illustrate an entire story, an entire movement so well, when simple meaning of the combined letters barely even exists? To me this is the definition of Dworkin’s “non-expressive poetry.”
Douglas Huebler’s “Vertical Line” (1970)
Meaning. Huebler is shouting that word at the top of his lungs, as presses his full weight on the ruler and draws his vertical line. The line is a violent retort, more of a giant middle finger than a piece of writing. He is an angry man. Angry at the art world, for reading too deeply between the lines, but also angry at everyone else for not understanding him. He draws his vertical line in disgust. And while he draws it, he dares us to understand, or try. As with Stein, his seemingly meaningless essay illustrates so much more than a vertical line, it communicates the fact that the act of making art is conceptual, even if the art itself is not. Dworkin said “language as a material entity,” and this material line is obviously language; it has meaning, and therefore communicates. Just as language does.
Vitto Acconci: “RE”
When I read the article “Analogy of conceptual writing,” I imagined conceptual writing as more complicated enumeration of words. However, “Re” was totally different how I thought. It was art in both way of visually and logically. The style Acconci used looked like handout style that teacher gives at school for kids to fill out. I somehow felt I wanted to find out what words to fill in the blanks. And as you read through, I felt writer’s mischievous feeling. It was fun to look at it and read.
Vitto Acconci: “READ THIS WORD”
Unlike his “RE,” it seemed to be made only for logical purpose. Those continuous sentences seemed to have no meaning at all. However, when I moved my eyes to word to word, I felt like I have been lost in maze. I wasn’t able to look at context, and only I could do was to follow the words. It was strange feeling.
John Baldessari “I will not make any more boring art”
When I looked at the work, I thought, “Oh, it’s boring!” The work made in bunch of cursive hand written lines of “I will not make any more boring art.” Since it was cursive hand writing, it wasn’t too boring to look at it and read. You would feel like to find any mistakes or spelled wrong words.
By reading the article “Analogy of conceptual writing,” I wasn’t sure what conceptual writing was. Through looking at those works, I started considering conceptual writing as the art work which made to entertain readers in meaning, sound, or sometimes visual way and it need much more preparation in brainstorm stage.
-Vitto Acconci: “RE”
Honestly, the first thing that came to mind when I started to read this piece was the “Who’s On First” routine by Abbott and Costello. Then as I read further, and re-read, I saw that this was obviously more in depth than just a play on words gag. I feel that Acconci is trying to say that in speaking, the person talking says words, but in truth may really mean or imply something other than what was said, which Acconci strengthens by adding all the open parentheses (leaving things open to interpretation). The end thought reminds me of a misinterpreted email.
-Victor Burgin: “Any Moment” (1970)
I really like this piece because Burgin forces the reader to draw upon his/her own emotions and feelings given the absolute lack of them supplied in the writing itself. The methodical execution of this piece, similar to a questionnaire or quiz, perfectly exemplifies non-expressive poetry. No matter what, each reader identifies themself to this piece, for its a self reflection of sorts, which draws upon our own creativity.
-Robert Barry (1971)
I feel that this is the perfect answer to questions, thoughts, concerns, critiques etc.. about any written work. It reminds me of notes on papers in high school English classes where the teacher writes on your paper, “What does this stand for? Explain why you wrote this..” Its like finally being able to answer back “You wanna know why? Here!” Because its so impossible to explain or justify a piece of work with just one thought or word, its fitting for Barry to jot down his stream of consciousnesses. The list truly could go on longer…
- Samuel Beckett, from Watt
At first glance I was intrigued and uncertain if there was really a reason to do more than skim through. The excerpt certainly stands out, and is a very bold idea in how it is presented. Actually reading through can be daunting from the psychological delirium that both enters you as you read it, as well as the characterizes the perspective following the character go about his repetitive insanity.
- George Brecht, “Word Event”
This is an interesting one. At first glance I had no conception of what was even going on. It didn’t strike me emotionally in any sense, which definitely places it into the collection well. The piece only begins to express itself with a little thought. The large period, labeled as an exit, marks the end of the “Word Event”. I see this as him expressing writing as a pure conceptual abstraction or process.
- Douglas Huebler, “Vertical Line”
What an impact. This piece hit me immediately with its modest form, a lone vertical line, and then upon further investigation the sentence brings the concept into full context, and instead of being drawn inward, I felt pulled out to the larger picture.
Conceptual art has stripped language of its romance and lyricism, presenting the viewer (who also takes on the role of subject) signs that are empty and demonstrate a “new new formalism”. With the grandeur of modernism off art’s shoulders, a new sense of plurality sets in. Anything goes and as the dematerialization of the art object ensues the word takes on a new sense of materiality. Words are objects within these peices and their history lies in an array of sources, creating a complex discourse. Deconstructing these influences is key. Beauty takes a backseat to heavy theory and explorations of semiotics.
John Baldessari, I Will Not Make Boring Art
I usually like John Baldessari, not because of his work but rather how he explains his work. This is a one liner and I understand it, but do not “get it”. It has a sense of materiality and repetition, which could be a reference to the loop that was important to this period of perfomance and video based peices. As also in the case of those, Baldessari’s peice falls short for me.
Robert Rauschenberg, Portrait of Iris Clert
“This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so”
The words here take of a physicality. The idea and object are one and the same. It is direct, while the rest of the paper leaves room for subjectivity. It seems that Rauschenberg is poking fun of the history of portraiture. Iris Clert is a famous gallery owner is Paris, representing such art greats as Picasso, Max Ernst, and Yves Klein. The ambiguity that Rauschenberg uses allow for many interpretations, drawing the viewer in to further investigate his intention.
Robert Smithson, A Heap of Language
Smithson uses random words that have no sense of narrative and structures them into a physical landscape of sorts. His words are objectified in this giant mass. A far cry from expressive poetry, this conceptual practice breaks down form and structure, deconstructs, recontrsucts, deconstructs, and so on.
-Claude Closky: “The first thousand numbers classified in alphabetical order”
It’s literally the first thousand numbers spelled out phonetically, separated with comas, starting at 8. This seems bland to me but I think it suits the criteria in Dworkin’s article. I have more appreciation for work like this when I can recognize art as a process vs an installation.
-Gertrude Stein: “Five Words in a Line”
This reminds me of some of the smart-ass one-liners my grandpa would tell me when I was a kid. It’s the sentence “Five words in a line.” It’s a play on words that is bland to me bearing in mind it’s artistic regard. This is probably what Dworkin would describe as “a poetry of form.”
Michael Harvey: “One card from Michael Harvey’s White Papers”
I actually enjoyed this piece in that it has some fluidity and depth. It forces you to readjust your analysis to even absorb the words. As far as conceptual art goes, I feel I’m more drawn to pieces that physically make a statement or pose a question. I’m not so much a fan of work that presses the boundaries of what can or can’t be regarded as art or artistic form.
Vito Acconci, “Read thes Word”
Acconci manages to make the reader very aware of the act of reading in this piece. So often we tune out the process itself, and simply jump our eyes from word to word and formulate a coherent idea in our minds. “Read this Word” reads like the process is undertaken; “READ THIS WORD THEN READ THIS WORD…” (Acconci). A surprising spin on using words with prior meaning to simply lead the reader by the nose through the meaningless paragraph.
Samuel Beckett “Watt”
This piece seems to focus on exploring an author’s power of perspective. In non-conceptual writing, authors cut down their hypothetical situations and environments to manageable lengths, like editing a film. In “Watt,” Beckett has placed a magnifying glass over the main character’s shoe situation and furniture placement. He manages, in doing so, to make obvious the limited perspective we as readers have when reading contemporary literature.
Howard Fried “Cheshire Cat”
Seemingly a chronological listing of activities, events, and personas over the 13 year span from 1946 to 1959. There does not seem to be any order to the events, jumping, for example, from “I leave…” to “I am an English horse.” The title implies a mysteriousness, an inconsistency, an ever-changing state. By taking small- and broad-themed snatches of everyday goings-on, we the reader get a kind of written time-laps camera image, though in words alone.
Samuel Beckett from “Watt”
This was one of the repetitive pieces I’ve ever read. Honestly, it started to give me a headache after a while. But on a bright note, the author was very accurate in portraying the character’s every move. Beckett wrote on every single movement his character made.
Christian Bok - “Ten Maps of Sardonic Wit”
I liked the poem. I liked how Bok linked his ideas with aspects of nature.
Taddea Oscuro (Jan. 1968)
The quote had alot of truth to it. Artists are inspired to create art, and sometimes art pieces becomes repetitive. Some start looking the same. So even though art isn’t thought to be formulaic or repetitive, in a way it is.
I feel that Vito Acconci’s “RE” is a rather playful presentation of a conversation in which we are allowed to see only so much of it (or a cheeky one). On my first glance, it looks like an incomplete poem or script, where one person is doing all the talking. After actually reading it, it feels like there could be more than one person in a multi-person conversation. Thinking about it, I am reminded of how the Peanuts cartoons depict adults speaking: the audience hears some sounds that could be muffled talking, but no actual words, and the child is the one that the audience can understand because their words are clear.
The same playfulness (or maybe it is cynicism?) is also evident in “Read This Word”. At first glance, it seems like instructions (much like the key chain at Spencer’s gift stores that read “how to keep an idiot busy: turn this over… how to keep an idiot busy: turn this over…”) on how to view the piece. Reading it a few times made me realize how much power is held in words, and how passive (at least) I am when reading “instructions”. These simple instructions may not be just instructions. I haven’t had to double take at a set of instructions this easy since high school. There was this work sheet that looked like a quiz and all the teacher said was “Read the directions carefully before you start. Follow the directions carefully and quietly. When you are done, turn your paper face down (it only had one side) and sit quietly at your desk until the bell rings” Easy instructions. Just like “Read This Word”. Turns out it was a test to see how well one follows directions (funniest and easiest school test I ever took). Aside from the jab of being a sheep reader, the form of the piece is actually just as important to the piece as the repetition of the words and the order they are in; going back and counting out the lines now, I realize that I want to put the words “a ninth” at the very end, because there are now 9 lines. Tricky tricky.
Another cheeky artist that caught my attention was John Baldessari; his piece is titled “I will not make any more boring art”. And the piece consists of a complete paragraph consisting of the same phrase repeated over and over again (for 16 times by my count). I like the play on meanings in this piece, instead of the normal idea/phrase of “I like the play on words”. While the words them selves add up to one meaning, the piece says something completely different. To me, a boring piece of art is just a pretty face and no body (looks nice, but no meaning to it). At face value, it is boring art; someone’s not-so-pretty hand writing (looks kind of like mine…) of the same phrase repeated 16 times with no variation to meaning, form, color, background, or style. That said, there is a secondary meaning that is now visible due to the piece’s plainness. And it also reminds me of Bart from the “Simpsons” cartoons.