The Paradox of (Some Conceptual Art)

All art is ‘conceptual’ in the sense that it has a cognitive aspect: if it engages our senses but not our minds, it is mere eye or ear candy (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not ‘art’ in the relevant sense). A work of art is usually called ‘conceptual art’ if its sensory aspect is much less important than it is in conventional art, or even entirely irrelevant to it. Sol LeWitt's definition (1967) is, "In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art."

M.C. Escher's painting showing an example of conceptual art

That last part of LeWitt's definition seems specific to his own aims, but if we take the first part to be the essential part, there are plenty of other sorts of conceptual art besides his. More typical (as Wikipedia rightly goes on to note) is the idea that conceptual art is a particularly potent way for art to "examine its own nature." This idea has arguably been an aim of art since the beginning, at least implicitly, but in conceptual art it comes to the foreground and indeed pushes everything else off the stage entirely.

In conceptual art, we must ignore as irrelevant any (not surprisingly unexciting) sensory properties it may have, in order to better grasp its message about how to see or hear in artistically significant ways. For example, Tracy Emin's My Bed looks exactly like what it is (i.e., her bed), but to complain that it is not much to look at (which is true enough) would be to miss its point. However, if conceptual art is to comment on conventional art rather than replace it, it will at least sometimes need to leave in place the default idea that even when our concern is art's cognitive features, we approach it through experiencing its sensory qualities.

The paradox of conceptual art, then, is that in forcing us to think about the nature of art rather than simply enjoying it, it can shift our attention away from the very things we need to see or hear if we are to draw its conceptual lesson properly.

For example, in Tracy Emin’s My Bed she shows us her bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Rather than let us suck in all of the qualities of the bed like the type of wood used to build the frame, the texture of the blanket, the pattern of her linens or even the number of pillows on it and let us admire the beauty of its simplicity just like conventional art, she invites us to look at what is on and around bed: empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties (the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown). By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing she is as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world. But to imply all this, she must show us her bed which is in fact, what she doesn’t want us to see and that there is the paradox I mentioned above.

Another example of the paradox of conceptual art is Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte's, The Treachery of Images. The image shows a pipe and below it painted "Ceci n'est pas une pipe.", French for "This is not a pipe." Rather than let you admire the pipe itself as an art form, Magritte seeks to bring a separate realization to you by letting you know it is not a pipe but rather just a representation of a pipe. But to get you thinking about that concept that the painting is actually not a pipe, he has to show you that representation (exactly what he is drawing your attention away from). The artist said after the painting had brought about a lot of controversy: "The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe", I'd have been lying!"

The most famous example of this sort is John Cage's silent piece of music, 4'33". Here the point is that since the work has no musical content at all, we are forced to look (or listen) elsewhere. The musical work we are looking forward to is actually just silence so we begin to notice the other sounds in the room around us. So in the end there is never actually ‘silence’ but we only notice that in relation to the original piece, which is in itself actually silence.

On the one hand, as a musical piece, 4'33" leaves almost no room for the pianist's interpretation: as long as he watches the stopwatch, he can't play it too fast or too slow; he can't hit the wrong keys; he can't play it too loud, or too melodramatically, or too subduedly. On the other hand, what you hear when you listen to 4'33" is more a matter of chance than with any other piece of music - nothing of what you hear is anything the composer wrote. John Cage later said "I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it"

So you see the paradox of conceptual poetry is not an uncommon thing leading to people to say that conceptual poetry obeys Sturgeon’s Law (“90% of everything is crap”) referencing the fake part the you initially see (i.e. the bed, the pipe and so on). So next time you see a conceptual work of art, stop and ask yourself “what exactly am I supposed to be looking at (or listening to)?”

References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art

• http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/10/the-paradox-of-some-conceptual-art.html#sthash.AGHiaPhT.dpuf

• http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/tracey_emin_my_bed.htm

• http://mindbluff.com/paradoxes.htm

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

• http://interglacial.com/~sburke/stuff/cage_433.html