One and Three Chairs
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One and Three Chairs, 1965, is a work by Joseph Kosuth. The piece consists of a chair, a photograph of this chair, and an enlarged dictionary definition of the word "chair". Crucial to the work is the fact that the photograph depicts the chair as it is actually installed in the room. The piece holds within it the context of its own display, and thus changes each time it is installed in a new venue. One and Three Chairs is an example of conceptual art.
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[edit] Concept
While the definition, the chair and its photograph change with each new installation of One and Three Chairs, two elements of the work remain constant. These are, 1) a copy of a dictionary definition of the word "chair", and, 2) a diagram with instructions for installing the work. Both elements are part of the concept and bear Kosuth's signature. The diagram and the notes together state that a chair is to be chosen and placed before a wall; a photograph of the chair is then to be taken, enlarged to the size of the actual chair, and placed on the wall to the left of the chair; finally, a blow-up of the (copy of) the dictionary definition is to be hung to the right of the chair, its upper edge aligned with that of the photograph.
[edit] Early conceptual art
Kosuth's concern with the difference between a concept and its mode of presentation was prefigured in the "event cards" of Fluxus-artists like George Brecht, Dick Higgins and Yoko Ono. These artists also tackled the problem of presenting "concepts" to an art audience. 'One and Three Chairs' is, perhaps, a step towards a resolution of this problem. Rather than present the viewer with the bare written instructions for the work, or make a live 'event' of the realization of the concept (in the manner of the Fluxus artists), Kosuth instead manages to unify concept and realization. One and Three Chairs demonstrates the way an artwork can embody an 'idea' that remains constant regardless of changes made to the elements that comprise it.
Kosuth stresses the difference between concept and presentation in his writings (e.g., "Art after Philosophy", 1969) and interviews (see the quotation below). He tries to intimately bind the conceptual nature of his work with the nature of art itself, thus raising his instructions for the presentation of an artwork to the level of a discourse on art. In 1963 Henry Flynt articulated these problems in the article "Concept Art". This was a forerunner to Kosuth's thematization of "Concept Art" in "Art after Philosophy", the text that made One and Three Chairs famous.
[edit] Interpretation
The work One and Three Chairs can be seen to highlight the relation between language, picture and referent. It problematizes relations between object, visual and verbal references (denotations) plus semantic fields of the term chosen for the verbal reference. The term of the dictionary includes connotations and possible denotations which are relevant in the context of the presentation of One and Three Chairs. The meanings of the three elements are congruent in certain semantic fields and incongruent in other semantic fields: A semantic congruity ("One") and a threefold incongruity ("One and Three"). Ironically One and Three Chairs can be looked upon as simple but at the same time be a rather complex model, of the science of signs. Looking at the piece, it causes you to ask yourself what's real here. What's real here, is the fact that the definition is real. This being that without a definition, you would never know what an actual chair really is.
There exist different interpretations of these semantic and ontological aspects, some of them refer to Plato´s Republic (Book X) and others refer to Ludwig Wittgenstein´s Tractatus (see Inboden) or to Charles S. Pierce's triad icon-index-symbol (see Tragatschnig). Dreher discusses the semantic problems of One and Three Chairs as inclusions of circles which represent semantic fields (see Dreher).
The work tends to defy formal analysis because one chair can be substituted for another chair, rendering the photograph and the chair photographed elusive to description. Nevertheless the particular chair and it's accompanying photograph lend themselves to formal analysis. There are many chairs in the world thus only those actually used can be described. Those chairs not used would not be analyzed. The enlarged dictionary definition of the word chair are also open to formal analysis, as is the diagram containing instructions of the work.
[edit] The concept and the theory of art
Kosuth's thematization of semantic congruities and incongruities can be seen as a reflection of the problems which the relations between concept and presentation pose. Kosuth uses the related questions `how meanings of signs are constituted´ and `how signs refer to extra-lingual phenomena´ as a fundament to discuss the relation between concept and presentation. Kosuth tries to identify or equate these philosophical problems with the theory of art. Kosuth not only changes the art practice from hand-made originals to notations with substitutable realizations but he tries to exemplify the relevance of this change for the theory of art within the concept of the presentation form which constitutes the "One and Three..." series, too.
In "Art after Philosophy" Kosuth provoked a confrontation with the formal criticism of Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried. Both exposed the concept of the art work as a non-substitutable instance realized by an artist who follows no other criteria than visual ones. They defined this concept as the core of modernism. In the sixties Greenberg's and Fried's modernist doctrine dominated the American discussions on art meanwhile the artists Allan Kaprow, Dick Higgins, Henry Flynt, Mel Bochner, Robert Smithson and Joseph Kosuth wrote articles on art exemplifying a pluralistic anti- and post-modernist tendency which gained more influence at the end of the sixties. In 1968, Greenberg characterized the situation: "The different mediums are exploding...when everybody is a revolutionary the revolution is over." (Avant Garde Attitudes, 1968) Meanwhile Greenberg tried to disqualify the new tendencies as "'novelty' art", the writings of the artists mentioned above offered alternative art theoretical foundations. One of the results was Sam Hunter's positive view of the art's situation in 1972: "The situation of open possibilities which confronted artists in the first years of the seventies allowed a variety of means and many fertile idea systems to coexist, reconciling through the poetic imagination apparent contradictions." (American Art of the 20th Century. New York 1972, p.410)
[edit] Quote
Joseph Kosuth, WBAI, April 7, 1970: "I used common, functional objects - such as a chair - and to the left of the object would be a full-scale photograph of it and to the right of the object would be a photostat of a definition of the object from the dictionary. Everything you saw when you looked at the object had to be the same that you saw in the photograph, so each time the work was exhibited the new installation necessitated a new photograph. I liked that the work itself was something other than simply what you saw. By changing the location, the object, the photograph and still having it remain the same work was very interesting. It meant you could have an art work which was that idea of an art work, and its formal components weren't important." (Siegel, Jeanne: Artwords. Discourse on the 60s and 20s. UMI Research Press, Ann Arbour/Michigan 1985; second edition Da Capo Press, New York 1992, p. 225)
[edit] Literature
- Archer, Michael: Art since 1960. Thames and Hudson, London 1997, p. 80.
- Art & Language (Atkinson, Terry/Baldwin, Michael/Pilkington, Philip/Rushton, David): Introduction to a Partial Problematic. In: Joseph Kosuth: Art Investigations & `Problematics´ since 1965. Cat. of exhib. Kunstmuseum Luzern. Luzern 1973, vol. 2, p. 12,22.
- Dickel, Hans u.a.: Die Sammlung Paul Maenz. Neues Museum Weimar. Edition Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 1998, p. 82s. (with descriptions of the constituents of the German-English version and a bibliography).
- Dreher, Thomas: Konzeptuelle Kunst in Amerika und England zwischen 1963 und 1976. Thesis Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität/Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 70-79.
- Inboden, Gudrun: Introduction: Joseph Kosuth - Artist and Critic of Modernism. In: Joseph Kosuth: The Making of Meaning. Selected Writings and Documentation of Investigations on Art Since 1965. Cat. of exhib. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Stuttgart 1981, p. 16-19.
- Kosuth, Joseph: Art after Philosophy, Part III. In: Studio International, December 1969, p. 212.
- Maenz, Paul: 1970-1975 Paul Maenz Köln. Gallery Paul Maenz, Cologne 1975, p. 85 (Illustrations of three different realizations of One and Three Chairs (English/German)).
- Prinz, Jessica: Text and Context: Reading Kosuth's Art. In: Prinz, Jessica: Art Discourse/Discourse in Art. Rutger U.P., New Brunswick/New Jersey 1991, p. 52,58.
- Rorimer, Anne: New Art in the 60s and 70s. Redefining Reality. Thames & Hudson, London 2001, p. 94.
- Tragatschnig, Ulrich: Konzeptuelle Kunst. Interpretationsparadigmen: Ein Propädeutikum. Reimer, Berlin 1998, p. 116.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Thomas Dreher Intermedia Art: Konzeptuelle Kunst: illustration "One and Three Chairs", version with English-German definition (blow-up of an article in a dictionary with an English-to-German translation).
- Centre Georges Pompidou Paris: version with English-French definition (blow-up of an article in a dictionary with an English-to-French translation).
- Remko Scha/Jochem van der Spek Algorithmic Art and Artificial Intelligence: Conceptual Art: Tautologies (with three examples). Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam (IAAA), Course.
- Clement Greenberg Avant Garde Attitudes (1968)
