THE IDEA: 'ONE AND THREE CHAIRS'
Joseph Kosuth's repeated installation 'One and Three Chairs' (1965), as seen in the figure below, was consisted of a dictionary definition of the word 'chair', which was hang up on the gallery wall, and an actual chair below the definition, and the photograph of the same chair that was placed next to the actual chair. The idea of Kosuth's installation find its roots in Plato's Republic. In Book 10, Plato takes his inquiry on the ideal city one step further and questions the role and distribution of artworks in Socrates's ideal city. Socrates criticizes art as being two removes from the real, that is to say the real chair is the chair that was produced by the divine and it exists in the ideal world and humans are not able to grasp the form of this ideal chair regarding their lack of knowledge, so the actual chair produced by the craftsman is a poor copy of the ideal chair. Socrates goes further by explaining that a painting of a chair is two removes from the reality because it imitates the chair produced by the craftsman, which was already one remove from the real chair.[1]
As a conceptual artist, Kosuth's preference in visually representing Plato's ideas on art is to state the importance of the idea that results in an artwork. Conceptual art, being the prominent art movement of 1960's and 70's, is highly self-referential. Most of the work produced in that period celebrate the idea being the key to the artwork as Sol LeWitt writes in 'Paragraphs on Conceptual Art' that:
Three-dimensional art of any kind is a physical fact. The physicality is its most obvious and expressive content. Conceptual art is made to engage the mind of the viewer rather than his eye or emotions. The physicality of a three-dimensional object then becomes a contradiction to its non-emotive intent. Color, surface, texture and shape only emphasize the physical aspects of the work. Anything that calls attention to and interests the viewer in this physicality is a deterrent to our understanding of the idea and is used as an expressive device. The conceptual artist would want to ameliorate this emphasis on materiality as much as possible or to use it in a paradoxical way (to convert it into an idea). This kind of art, then, should be stated with the greatest economy of means. Any idea that is better stated in two dimensions should not be in three dimensions. Ideas may also be stated with numbers, photographs, or words or any way the artist chooses, the form being unimportant.[2]
While directly referring to Plato's emphasis on the ideas, on the other hand, Kosuth touches upon the issue of the borders of philosophy that come into collision with the borders of art. Just as Plato favors philosophy against art by using language as his only medium, Kosuth favors art against philosophy by using language with a completely different purpose that changes the expressive role of the medium. As Hagberg puts it: “Art picks up where language leaves off”[3]. As he further discusses the issue, he acknowledges:
It is a claim that stems directly from the thoroughgoing assimilation of art to language, or rather assimilation to a particular view of language. This view is the picture theory of meaning developed in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and it is Langer’s adoption of this model of language as a model for art.[4]
Before proceeding with the issue of language, it is important to understand the opposite standpoint of Kosuth's to Plato's ideas on art. One can argue that the discussion on the distribution of artworks in Socrates's Kallipolis is Kosuth's second and subtle referential point. Socrates discusses that there is a rational and irrational part of the human soul. The rational part measures and calculates the human actions in search for the truth, whereas the irrational part, involving emotions, can make people ignore the search for the truth. According to Socrates, art has such a great influence and manipulative power, via aesthetics, on the irrational part of the soul that it is dangerous for people without the necessary knowledge on the real and deludes the public because art in itself is the imitation of the real. Philosophy is the way to grasp the truth so art should be censored by the philosopher kings of Kallipolis.[5]
Kosuth's subtle reference to Socrates's criticism on art also includes his own criticism on formalist art. On the first level, Kosuth claims with 'One and Three Chairs' that art is replacing or has already replaced philosophy in order to fulfill “man's spiritual needs”[6] by representing Plato's ideas in an art context. Secondly, he criticizes the formalist understanding of art by rejecting the idea of 'mimesis'[7]. Similar to what Sol LeWitt claims about the unimportance of the form of the artwork, Kosuth argues in his article 'Art after Philosophy' that:
'Modern' art and the work before seemed connected by virtue of their morphology. Another way of putting it would be that art's 'language' remained the same, but it was saying new things. The event that made conceivable the realization that it was possible to 'speak another language' and still make sense in art was Marcel Duchamp's first unassisted Readymade. With the unassisted Readymade, art changed its focus from the form of the language to what was being said. Which means that it changed the nature of art from a question of morphology to a question of function.[8]
He bases his argument on the idea that art is not aimed to imitate the nature and the physical quality of the artwork means very little when compared to the idea that it evolves from and manages to convey his criticism on formalist art visually in 'One and Three Chairs' by using different ready-made objects such as a coat, a saw, or a clock instead of a chair when he repeated the same installation in different places. Additionally, as an opposition to what Socrates claims about the aesthetics of the artwork that delude the public on their search for the truth, he claims that art is not necessarily aesthetic. A decorative object has to be aesthetic because it serves a decorative purpose but art only exists to be art and serves no other purpose than understanding the nature of art:
It is necessary to separate aesthetics from art because art deals with opinions on perception of the world in general. In the past one of the two prongs art's function was its value as decoration. So any branch of philosophy which dealt with 'beauty' and thus, taste, was inevitably duty bound to discuss art as well. Out of this 'habit' grew the notion that there was a conceptual connection between art and aesthetics, which is not true.[9]
In this context, Kosuth's arguments are worth considering while questioning the relations of arts to philosophy, whether art can take place of philosophy in order to understand 'the real' through man's spiritual quest. With reference to Socrates’ meaning of irrational part, Hagberg quotes as:
Wittgenstein gave an account of the meaning of propositions in terms of their logical picturing, or formal similarity to objects in the external world, whereas Langer is offering an account of meaning in art in terms of formal similarity to the internal world, the world of inner feeling. This, then, is the precise sense in which art is allegedly takes up where language leaves off. Wittgenstein ended the Tractatus with the equally famous and even more cryptic remark that whereof we cannot speak, there must we pass over in silence. Langer, however, begins her account of the meaning of art at this point just beyond the reach of language. Whereof we cannot speak, there we must compose, paint, write, sculpt, and so forth.[10]
ART PICKS UP WHERE LANGUAGE LEAVES OFF
Based on Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions, Kosuth argues that:
Works of art are analytical propositions. That is, if viewed within their context-- as art -- they provide no information what-so-ever about any matter of fact. A work of art is a tautology in that it is a presentation of the artist's intention, that is, he is saying that that particular work of art is art, which means is a definition of art. Thus, that it is art is true a priori (which is what Donald Judd means when he states that 'if someone calls it art, it's art')[11].
Regarding the use of language as a medium of artistic expression the irony in Kosuth’s work is undeniable. For him language preserves its relational dynamics with the contexts they come alive. This recognition is not foreign to Plato’s arguments on the idea of things. Yet his reference point is blurred on the contrary. For Kosuth, there accepted no hierarchy of values concerning the perception of things but a sense of differentiation among concepts which would eventually differentiate the word itself as well. For that matter language is a medium of artistic expression in Kosuth’s work. The utilization of language at this level is safe if one considers the threat that use of language poses in the quest of truth. More, this kind of stimulation may bring a retrospective perception along which would create an inverse effect for 'the society of spectacle'[12] to preserve itself. In such considerations that one would find Kosuth political as well in his search for the artistic expression of truth.
Is language safe in the quest of truth? Or in Nietzsche’s words, “Is language the adequate expression of all realities?”[13] Is it possible for us to grasp the things in themselves? The ultimate is for sure beyond the grasp. Yet to see things in various conceptual edifices gives the individual the power to approach further to the ultimate[14], or let’s say to the “unsayable”. Within all these conceptual frames language is the ultimate accomplice. Kosuth’s choice of language as the medium of creation is not a choice at all. Kosuth is obliged to utilize the words to reveal their transformed values and relations to the same meaning in different time-space spectrums. To sharpen the meaning, Hagberg provides such a remark: “[…] despite their fundamental likeness, art and language do not collapse into each other to become identical. The line of demarcation between the two thus corresponds to the limit of the sayable.”[15]
In turn the artwork is able to stand by itself without creating another conceptual prison just by including more than one edifice within. Yet the artwork is another conceptual frame. It is by these means possible for the artwork to replace philosophy in the quest of truth. There one can see a meaningful expression without being deceived by the expression. To manage this Kosuth takes from Socrates’ definition of things in relation to arts and crafts. The notion can be shown as:
IDEA -------> CRAFT (EXPERIENCE) -------> ART (IDEALIZATION)
This scheme is showing the two removes from the real. The artwork in that respect is taken away from the reality and become irrational. Kosuth breaks free from this scheme by including more than one experience to the conceptual frame of the artwork. For that matter:
IDEA -------> CHAIR EXPERIENCE 1 -------> ARTWORK
(CHAIR) -------> CHAIR EXPERIENCE 2 -------> (ONE AND THREE
-------> CHAIR EXPERIENCE 3 -------> CHAIRS)
While the language is protecting this deception of unity, the expression of different experiences that use the same deceptive medium separately turns out the meaning away when combined. In that respect the focus on experience is the distinct power of the conceptual art to replace philosophy in comparison to the poor experiential expression of the formalist art. Thus the art becomes the language of the unsayable given this identical definition from Tractatus:
One name stands for one thing, and another for another thing, and they are connected together. And so the whole, like a living picture, presents the atomic fact.[16]
In reference to the Society of Spectacle:
The issue is ‘representation’ – specifically, the representation of the object of study in a critical text. […] By most accounts, collage is the single most revolutionary formal innovation in artistic representation to occur in our century. Although the technique itself is ancient, collage was introduced into the “high arts” (as is well known) by Braque and Picasso as a solution to the problems raised by analytic cubism, a solution which finally provided an alternative to the “illusionism" of perspective which had dominated Western painting since the early Renaissance.[17]
In relation to the above quotation, it is written in the Society of Spectacle as:
In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.
The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudo-world that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomised images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.[18]
Agreed on the shift from philosophical to artistic quest of truth, the creation of the society of spectacle seems to be the threat Socrates defines as the "irrational part" of human knowledge. The detachment of the image from its reality creates a footloose deceptive truth in itself which is ultimately false and pseudo as Debord and Knabb state.
Yet it makes sense to define Kosuth's work as a counter creation against the deceptive nature of the spectacle. Providing the meaning within its different uses, Kosuth re-attach the sign to its mental formation within a specific system of a language. The view of such an art form is counter-acting against the popular form of an image illusioned with a specific perspective. As Merleau-Ponty describes the art form of the period based on her ideas on subject and object: “[...] the multiperspectivalism implicit in installation art comes to be equated with an emancipatory liberal politics and an opposition to the 'psychological rigidity' of seeing things from one fixed point of view.”[19]
ART IS 'THE REAL'
The use of language in art-making became subject to severe discussions with the manifests of the Art & Language group at the end of 60's. Kosuth, already being introduced the linguistic forms into his art in the early 60's later merged his work with the Art & Language group in the early 70's. Charles Harrison explains the object of the group as “[...] to challenge the competences of the 'adequately sensitive, adequately informed, spectator' and to do so on the ground of an artistic practice which extended into the territory of language and literature.” He continues to explain the role of language as the power forms of the beholder's non-aesthetic existence as well as the forms of reference to the aesthetic which are the functions of the allegories serve and express these powers and interests even as they mask and misinterpret them. “The 'adequately sensitive, adequately informed, spectator' historicizes , interprets and judges in the aesthetic realm, and does so securely so long as he is allowed to be disinterested; so long, that is to say, the material (and other) grounds of that adequacy are not laid open to inquiry.”[20]
Kosuth uses language in his works in such a way that the language is induced to the primary condition to being language which is 'to define'. That is to say, the medium he uses is no longer the language used in the conventional sense but the condition that makes it a language. In this sense, 'One and Three Chairs' becomes a genuine artwork that uses the symbols of language to refer to the condition why language exists and the photographic images to refer to the condition of photography to reflect a certain frame of the real and the artwork as a whole to refer to the condition of art only existing for art's sake. Art is 'the real' in 'One and Three Chairs'.
On a broader perspective, breaking language free from its conventions and integrating it into art-making process also serves as a medium to form a new language for art that opens it up to inquiry. That's is to say, the ground that the aesthetic inquiry conveyed is enlarged to question the existence of the artwork and all that relates to that work, which covers the men's spiritual needs as the producer and the perceiver of the work. John Dewey approaches the aesthetic experience as such: “[...] all the elements of our being that are displayed in special emphasis and partial realizations in other experiences are merged in aesthetic experience. And they are so completely merged in the immediate wholeness of the experience that each is submerged – it does not present itself in consciousness as a distinct element.” and he argues that art challenges philosophy because while art is able to use all the tools of philosophy for the inquiry on being, philosophy falls short first in explaining the true experience.[21]
In conclusion, the analysis above on the use of language and the art experience leads the way back to the primary focus of the analysis on 'One and Three Chairs' which is the question whether art has replaced philosophy or not, as Kosuth puts it:
The twentieth century brought in a time which could be called 'the end of philosophy and the beginning of art.' I do not mean that, of course, strictly speaking, but rather as the 'tendency' of the situation. Certainly linguistic philosophy can be considered the heir to empiricism, but it's a philosophy in one gear. And there is certainly an 'art condition' to art preceding Duchamp [...][22]
The question imposed is still a big one to resolve but Adorno's words provide an intermediary explanation on the converging borders of philosophy and arts to what Dewey and Kosuth claim:
The truth content of artworks is not what they mean but rather what decides whether the work in itself is true or false, and only this truth of the work in-itself is commensurable to philosophical interpretation and coincides—with regard to the idea, in any case—with the idea of philosophical truth. For contemporary consciousness, fixated on tangible and unmediated, the establishment of this relation to art obviously poses the greatest difficulties, yet without this relation art's truth content remains inaccessible: Aesthetic experience is not genuine experience unless it becomes philosophy.—The condition for the possibility that philosophy and art converge is to be sought in the element of universality that art possesses through its specification as language suigeneris. This universality is collective just as philosophical universality, for which the transcendental subject was once the signum, points back to the collective subject.[23]
[1] Plato, The Republic, (United Kingdom: Penguin Books Ltd., 2007), 421-439.
[2] Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” Artforum 5 (June, 1967).
[3] G. L. Hagberg, Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning and Aesthetic Theory (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 9.
[4] Ibid.
[5] (Plato 2007), 421-439.
[6] Joseph Kosuth, “Art after Philosophy”, in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford, 1992), 860.
[7] Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays, (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1966), 4.
[8] (Kosuth 1992), 855-56.
[9] Ibid., 854.
[10] (Hagberg 1998), 11–12.
[11] (Kosuth 1992), 857.
[13] Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche et al., The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 139-143.
[15] (Hagberg 1998), 16.
[16] Ibid., 9.
[17] Gregory L. Ulmer, “The Object of Post-Criticism”, in Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster, (Pluto Press, 1983), 83–110.
[18] (Debord and Knabb 2006), 7.
[19] Merleau-Ponty, 'The Child's Relations with Others', in Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, (Evanston, 1964), 101-5.
[21] (Kosuth 1992), 853.
[23] Theodor W. Adorno et al., Aesthetic Theory, (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004), 172-3.
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