"All Things Visible and Invisible": Conceptual Art and Contemplation

Abstract

"All Things Visible and Invisible":Conceptual Art and Contemplation Taylor Worley (bio) In his "Sentences on Conceptual Art," the artist Sol LeWitt asserts that, "Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach."1 While it may seem that the author was using a religious term for rhetorical effect, it should be noted that this statement actually begins his list of thirty-five discreet aphorisms on conceptual art. More than that, biographers have noted that LeWitt possessed and drew from several sources on Jewish mysticism in his personal library.2 For his part, LeWitt's exploration into more conceptual modes of art making was fueled in large part by his fascination with representing the relationship between the concept of an artwork and its physical realization. Hence, he preferred serialized sets of instructions for realizing drawings on the walls of gallery spaces, which opened the concept to a potentially unending array of diverse manifestations. His question revolved around pushing a singular idea to its fullest, most generative expression. For LeWitt, simple instructions produce beautiful results. Take, for example, his 1971 work entitled Wall Drawing #63: A wall is divided into four horizontal parts. In the top row are four equal vertical divisions, each with lines in a different direction. In the second row, six double combinations; in the third row, four triple combinations; in the bottom row, all four combinations superimposed. While titles like these are certainly precise to the point of tediousness, many people, perhaps, would be surprised to discover that the same artist is responsible for numerous visually pleasing and lovely wall drawings situated with care in major museums around the world. In this way, then, what may appear as nothing more than a novel form of iconoclasm in contemporary art is, in fact, LeWitt's attempt to reshape visual art practice in ways that might protect the mysterious space between the artist's inspiration and its physical manifestation. In other words, art's meaning constitutes more than its surface in image, symbol, or language. Indeed, there is much more of conceptual art's story that remains to be told where it concerns its "mysticism." While short-lived as a distinct art movement, conceptual approaches show up in contemporary art to a significant degree today. The influence can be seen in everything from land art, installation art, performance art, social practice [End Page 229] art, video art, new media, and digital art. The artworld has absorbed conceptualism's introspective approach and its liberated stance toward materiality.3 The diffuse influence of conceptualism is, however, not an accident. In fact, the early pioneers of Conceptual Art refused the term 'conceptualism' in hopes of avoiding the formation of another, easily caricatured modernist "-ism."4 By most accounts, their insistence has proved effective, and today's creative possibilities seem limitless. While conceptual art can employ various approaches to materiality and engage diverse critical issues, there appears to be a unifying feature in its basically reflective character. Indeed, the art historian Tony Godfrey describes the psychological frame of conceptualism thus: "We are being made to think of ourselves thinking."5 Relatedly, Godfrey reflects that, "Because the work does not take a traditional form it demands a more active response from the viewer, indeed it could be argued that the Conceptual work of art only truly exists in the viewer's mental participation."6 In this light, then, conceptualism is not simply about undermining the aesthetic priority of art but utilizing all the cognitive strategies available to render unfamiliar what had become stale in the experience of visual art. But at the same time, conceptual art surely cannot be accused of trying too hard, and for this reason it appears to be the least immersive or least manipulative form of contemporary art. If it feels like conceptual works are barely there, that is because the invitation to reflection is not coercive or severe. Thus, Godfrey concludes that, "The legacy of Conceptual art is not a historical style, but an ingrained habit of interrogation. It is in the act of questioning that the subject, reader, or viewer becomes himself or herself."7 As Godfrey's assessment makes clear, conceptualism...