Later On | Similar but different Conditions evolve Response adapts |
B
y the 1970's, parallel with the development of leisure suits and disco, the cultural role of art crystallized as primarily a communication of ideas. Artwork considered as an object of visual or spatial experience resulting in pleasure was both challenged and ostracized. We now regard as a requirement for serious art to “raise fundamental questions concerning its own definition and the contexts in which it intervenes.” Osborne's comprehensive survey of conceptual art describes this transformation, placing the alteration into the larger context of politics, media and society. (Osborne, Peter. Conceptual Art. Themes and movements. London: Phaidon, 2002. Print.) Organized into three supporting sections, the book starts with an essay overview, then presents a large set of images representing important works by essential practitioners, and finishes with a compendium of primary critical sources, many of which are written by the artists themselves. This last section is important, as “critical writing by conceptual artists is integral to their practice.” In other words, the last section of the book can be considered as not just further elucidations about conceptual art, but as conceptual art! It is in this spirit that the writtings in latentsifier are grounded.
“All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives its final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.” - Marcel Duchamp
