Kazimir Malevich painted his Black Square in 1915, and it was soon followed by White on White. I had thought this was pretty radical, but I’ve just been reading of three earlier works along similar lines, created by Alphonse Allais in the 1880’s. Alas, no images seem to be available on the web, but I’ve approximately re-created them from descriptions in Kirk Varnedoe’s Mellon Lectures.
First Communion of Anemic Young Girls in Snowy Weather
A Harvest of Tomatoes on the Edge of the Red Sea Harvested by Apoplectic Cardinals
Total Eclipse of the Sun in Darkest Africa
I should have had this up two days ago, but Karl distracted me with his own April Fool’s post. By the way, long before John Cage, Allais presented a blank set of musical bars entitled Funeral Mass for a Deaf Man.
[Update: though intended to be amusing, this post is not an April Fool’s bluff. The pictures mentioned are, as far as I know from several accounts, matters of historical fact.]
Steve, my dear I am a big defender of artists and amateurs, and even more I try to incentivise communities and children to be involved in art making.
I never criticise anyone’s work but always make sure I see the positive aspects of a personal piece, as a healing action… (Sometimes is so much more about the process than the outcome.)
… But when I see this sort of ‘pretentions smart paintings’ I don’t know, it is against my beliefs, it’s all about the concept… what concept? Where is the art?
Let’s not call it art please, just “theory” because I find this is a real insult to any hard working, intelligent real artist!
Well, let me put it this way, someone who would love to play piano but never played it before can develop some music theory and just bang on the piano and call it: Composition of a storm in the gold sunset!
Steve:
Not to mention “Black Cat In A Coal Bin” by Elizabeth Noir.
Angela,
I imagine your piano player in the gallery where Turner’s not universally admired painting of the long name, Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth making Signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead. (Turner was in this Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich) was presented.
I suspect that the pictures were not thought of as “art,” nor even as what we’d now call conceptual art, but more as jokes. So my title is misleading if it implies that these were some intentional abstract art. As for such conceptual art, I sometimes find it witty and ingenious, and sometimes excruciating in every way.
I like conceptual art so I think I will stay out of this.
D.,
Do you like all conceptual art?
The conceptual artist Jonathon Keats who was out here recently had a design (unexecuted) for a stretch of Strawberry Creek where it flowed through the lower Berkeley campus. Well-placed stones would cause it to execute a musical composition that would unfold at the rate of a walker along the stream. We’re hoping to actually do that on the campus here.
Steve:
Is the rate of flow considered in the plans?
A class of mine made some Earth Art on campus near Strawberry Creek. One of the students made an absurdly large “Bird’s Nest” and placed it near a walking path, under a tree. It was so well-made that many of those passing by stopped to consider its Realness by looking up. Another student simply drew a hopscotch board on the sidewalk. A few people played. And another organized a stick race down the creek. That was fun.
Jay,
Flow rate was not considered at all rigorously, and would naturally be changing seasonally and with rain storms. Frankly, I doubt much tunefulness could be expected. But simply structuring the sound in a potentially interesting way that a walker might become aware of (or not) strikes me as a delightful concept. Besides, as D. says, some non-destructive play with streams is to be encouraged, whatever the sometimes-appropriate-but-in-this-case-frustrating statutes regarding modification of waterways. I’m sorely tempted to guerilla action.
But there is a good side to it, conceptual art is for inteligent people who have no talent for painting!
Dismissing a conceptualist because of what they are not is… silly. Have you seen the work by the most recent Turner Prize winner, Mark Wallinger. It is brilliant.
http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00026/Mark-Wallinger-07050_26933b.jpg
Denver has a huge blue horse, not generally liked. Wallinger’s is better on many levels.
D.:
Poking around, as I am with this post, allow me another question: what is all that conceptual about the horse sculpture? Virtually everything that rallies under the banner of art is based upon, or exemplifies, some idea or another.
Steve:
Stuff like regs can take the fun out. I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but Rudolph Steiner came up with a waterfall management scheme that he called Flowform. I think something should come up if you Google that name.
For Wallinger, the material/means is secondary to the idea.
I don’t find the horse very interesting as a horse or as sculpture per se, though I like that it seems quite naturalistic. I haven’t read or heard anything about it, but it seems a powerful (sorry) statement that the power plant (I think) on the horizon and the electrical power flowing from it are a huge change from the farmland formerly worked by horsepower. It also reminds me of the white horses etched out of the occasional chalk bluff; I’m not sure how old those are (pre-Roman?). What I really want is a picture of it with a sort of horse-shaped cloud above. Photoshop (anyone)?
I guess I’m agreeing the idea here is primary, though the presentation is also essential to any appeal. But it doesn’t work for me on its own, out of context.
The horse looks like a sculpture to me, and its really clever!
Folks:
Not so much that Wallinger’s stuff is categorized as “conceptual”. For that matter it could be dubbed “symbolic”, “connective”, “obsessive”, “aha!”, or any combination of terms. My problem centers on the need to apply such things at all.
Concerning “conceptual”, however, it has been my impression that brevity is the soul of wit: that the use of least means applies. A huge horse set out in a field is a bit much.
Jay,
I can’t speak to how Wallinger’s work is classified. I do agree with you that there’s some kind of idea underlying just about any art, but I’m not sure that says much meaningful: isn’t there some kind of idea behind everything we do? What counts the most to me as a viewer are the ideas and feelings I get looking at something. And, to go out on a limb, it seems those are usually much richer with art that isn’t considered “conceptual.” I can definitely find conceptual art significant and appealing, but somehow when it fails it’s not only bad, it’s pretentious.
I love the Horse.
Erstwhile A&P stalwart Leslie Holt currently has a show at the David Lusk Gallery in Memphis of her Hello Kitty work that was discussed here and here. The term “conceptual” never came up, though “concept” certainly did. Does this count as “conceptual art”?
Steve:
There’s an element of intention about art that is different. And then there are the ideas, concepts, that help us meet our daily needs. True that my shaving is based upon ideas, but none of them are mine, and I am not inclined to pull a Gillette and come up with a new facial paradigm. However, I just might get some bright idea about a big video production in which I engage in some kind of shavery to advance an idea or concept.
And you make my intended point very well. Things flow better when not pigeon holed with terminology.
And I think the horse will never see the light of day. But I am happy to hear that Leslie is still doing her thing.
But it has seen the light of day.
D.
The light of a display case I’ll grant you, where a model resides. An article in the Guardian expressed my own concerns. It stands to be under engineered, under funded and under appreciated once the novelty has worn off. And who is going to maintain it? I predict that cooler heads will prevail and the horse will not be built.
THe defense rests.
I do think this was more of cynicism rather than art. Had I gone to a gallery to see these (this actually was the Final Jeopardy today, the unique quality of First Communion…) I would have felt like I wasted my time. But on the same side, conceptual art is supposed to make you think, and I sat here and pondered WHY First Communion would be all white, so I guess it’s more art than I readily admit. lol It does its job.
Steve:
As you, I always thought of Malevich as far ahead for his time with his monochromatic works and considered Kandinski as the first abstract painter. Aphonse Allais was a French writer and humorist, he presented three sheets of paper, one white, one red and one blue and named them in a humorous way. That is not painting and he should neither be considered as a painter, nor as a Conceptual Artist.
In Wikipedia there is a photo of the original “painting” he presented in the Salon des Arts Incoherénts, “First Communion……………..”
Deborah,
My impression is more of fun-poking than cynicism, but certainly less of art. As you say, the thinking is the interesting part, whether one calls it art or not.
Irma,
I find it a bit hard to draw the line between Allais’ humor and that of someone like Jonathon Keats (see self-curated Wikipedia article); Keats scientific elaborations are intriguing, though somewhat parallel to the extended and clever titles of Allais’ pictures. But in fairness, I have to agree with you that Allais can’t really be considered an artist. I also agree about Malevich and Kandinsky, who grow on me with each exposure.