Art & Language

Art & Language is an artist group of representatives of the concept art that was founded in 1968 in Coventry in the UK.

Development and work

The first artists of Art & Language were Terry Atkinson ( born 1939 ) and Michael Baldwin ( b. 1945 ), who met in 1966 as students at the Coventry College of Art. Rasch joined other artists, initially David Bainbridge ( b. 1941 ) and Harold Hurrell (* 1940) to the collective. In 1968, the group founded the publishing Art & Language Press in Cambridge and published in 1969 the first issue of the magazine " Art-Language ".

The early work of the group and the magazine " Art-Language " had an important influence on the development of conceptual art both in Britain and in the United States.

Parallel founded in the late 1960s Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden and Roger Cutforth in New York, the Society for Theoretical Art and Analysis. After the American group in June 1969, was aware of Art & Language, both groups started from February 1970 to cooperate with each other and fused together in the sequence.

In the early 1970s, Michael Corris, Charles Harrison, Preston Heller, Graham Howard, Andrew Menard, Terry Smith and Coventry Philip Pilkington and David Rushton joined with their work of Art & Language.

In the course of the 1970s, to Art & Language busy with matters relating to the production of art and tried a shift from the traditional " non-linguistic " forms of art such as painting and sculpture to more theoretically oriented work. Art & Language wanted to help with their investigation into a demystification of art. The group had in the theoretical discourse often deal with the argumentative positions prevailing views of critics such as Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried.

Because of the linguistic- analytical nature of the work of Art & Language, there were affinities to other conceptual artists such as Joseph Kosuth or Ian Wilson, who co- incidentally also in the group. Also a member of the group was the American musician Mayo Thompson ( The Red Krayola, Pere Ubu ). On his initiative, was published in 1976 a joint album by The Red Krayola with Art & Language under the name Corrected slogans.

In the late 1970s, the group essentially still consisted of Baldwin, Harrison and Ramsden. The political analysis and political disputes had led to many members had left the group to operate elsewhere political activism. Ian Burn and Terry Smith returned to Australia where she along with Ian Milliss also a conceptual artist who began with the unions in the early 1970s, a design studio specializing in social marketing and community and trade union rights as an art initiative build. Karl Beveridge and Carol Condé as peripheral members of the group in New York, returned to Canada, where she also started a cooperation with trade unions and political groups. Other British members drifted in a variety of creative, scientific, and sometimes even "political" professions.

The Art & Language group ( their most extensive work ) in the Department Idea Idea / Light participated in 1972 at the Documenta 5 in Kassel with the " Index 0001", consisted of Atkinson, Bainbridge, Baldwin, Burn, Hurrell, Ramsden, Harrison and the U.S. specialists for art Joseph Kosuth language. Art & Language was also represented at the Documenta 6 (1977 ), Documenta 7 in 1982 and the Documenta X in 1997.

Since 1977, Art & Language is essentially from the collaboration of Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden in Banbury, Oxfordshire. There was now an extensive body of work, in particular to images. Most of the texts are written by Charles Harrison, who publishes since 1971 " Art-Language ".

In 1986, Art & Language was honored with a nomination for the Turner Prize. In 1999, Art & Language, presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the large installation entitled "The Artist Out of Work " from.

Former members of Art & Language

  • Terry Atkinson
  • David Bainbridge
  • Ian Burn
  • Sarah Charlesworth
  • Michael Corris
  • Preston Heller
  • Graham Howard
  • Harold Hurrell
  • Joseph Kosuth
  • Christine Kozlov
  • Andrew Menard
  • Philip Pilkington
  • Neil Powell
  • David Rushton
  • Terry Smith
  • Mayo Thompson
  • Ian Wilson

Literature and sources

  • Art-Language. Vol 1, No. 1 May, 1969 -. March 1985 19 numbers. Art & Language Press, Warwickshire, UK.
  • A complete reproduction of this first series of the journal appeared in January 2000. Vol 1: No. 1, The Journal of Conceptual Art, May, 1969; No. 2, February 1970; No. 3, June 1970; No. 4, November 1971
  • Vol 2: No. 1, 1972; No. 2, Summer 1972; No. 3, Sept. 1973; No. 4, 1974
  • Vol 3: No. 1, September 1974; No. 2, 1975; No. 2, 1975; No. 3, 1976; No. 4, 1976
  • Vol 4: No. 1-2, 1977; No. 3, 1978; No. 4, 1980
  • Vol 5: No. 1, 1982; No. 2, March 1984, No. 3, March 1985
  • Paul Maenz, Gerd de Vries (ed.): Art & Language. DuMont, DuMont Art Practice, Cologne 1972.
  • Exhibition catalog: documentation fifth survey of reality - imagery today; Catalog (as folders ) Volume 1: (material); Volume 2: ( list of exhibits ); Kassel in 1972 documenta Archiv (ed. ); Resubmission d5 - A survey of the archive to the documenta, 1972; Kassel / Ostfildern 2001, ISBN 3-7757-1121- X
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