Chapter Six: Language, from Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art After 1980 by Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel.
Abstract:
This post is a chapter summary from the above mentioned book. I originally bought this book for my undergrad Senior Seminar course with Kasarian Dane and Lisa VanArragon. The book covers what it explains as the main themes in contemporary art since 1980, Time, Place, Identity, The Body, Language, and Spirituality. I am reviewing this chapter as part of my series on semiotics.
Language:
The authors in looking at language begin by describing a 1996 show at the MoMa titled “Thinking Print: Books to Billboards”. The authors explain that a viewer may have viewed this show and “conclude that the incorporation of language in visual art is a common strategy among contemporary artists working in various printed formats…a broader survey of art since 1980 would reveal that language has been incorporated frequently in artworks in almost every conceivable medium” (161). The author’s are careful to distinguish that their interest is language IN art rather than language ABOUT art.
In introducing their discussion of language in art the authors describe language as a theme in visual works as stemming at least in part, from “theories that emphasize how cultural meaning is negotiated within language and other symbolic systems” (161). What they go on to describe is the roll and impact of semiotics. “In the later half of the twentieth century, works of visual art came to be viewed as “texts” to be examined…for hidden meaning, internal contradictions, and implicit ideologies ” (162).
Interestingly, immediately following their initial comment on “texts” the authors dive into a brief historical overview of the development of language. Describing language forms like knot tying, pictographs, hieroglyphics, and later “true” alphabets, the authors begin to formulate a starting point for language as a sign system (linguistics). The authors also point out the “arbitrariness” of signs in their discussion of the difference between the English alphabet and Chinese characters. English uses letters to signify sounds whereas Chinese characters signify concepts. The authors carry on this discussion by describing how calligraphy makes language visual art. The describe the relationship between visual art and language in this way, and extend it to English by presenting poems “in which written words have evoked visual qualities” (163). Eventually , the authors try to bridge this concept to paintings by Kay Rosen and Kenneth Goldsmith.
The authors then dive into a history of “art with words”. They trace early instances of text in paintings back to the renaissance, and the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. They then describe, very briefly, some reasons why contemporary artists may use words in painting. Beginning with Cubist’s collages (especially text based) as a way of “breaking down the distinction between art and life…an important leitmotif over the past hundred years” (164). Later graphic designers used text in advertising as a way of slowing down interpretation. Cy Twombly and Morris Graves are even credited with styles of painting “that echoed the flow of written script” (165). Pop art and Conceptual art is then mentioned. Lichtenstein, Warhol, Duchamp. Duchamp is given a comparably lengthy homage via conceptual art. Conceptual artists “carried forward the banner Duchamp unfurled; they utilized words as a way of making ideas the central component in their art. In extreme instances, the words themselves became the artwork” (165). The authors also interestingly list documentation of artworks as a way of making or completing art which relies heavily on language. The authors then move on to recent theories of Language.
After 1980 explorations of language gained momentum. “Due, in part, to the expanding application of concepts from semiotics and linguistics in the analysis of visual culture” (166). The authors then briefly describe what semiotics is:
“Semiotics, the branch of philosophy that deals with the study of symbolic signs, and linguistics. Visual art, as a form of communication using representational signs as well as abstract symbols, became a topic caught up in the web of theoretical debates concerning language and the use of signs” (166).
The authors go on to flesh out the ramifications of seeing visual art as a sign system.