When I looked through web and
dictionaries to search the literal meaning of dematerialization I came across
several explanations all of them referring to the fact that dematerialization
means doing more with less without downgrading the functionality. In art realm
though it conveys a different meaning when conceptual are is involved. Despite
from traditional art in which artists represent their subjects through medium –
for example in painting, sculpture, photography the medium are respectively
paint, wood/plastic/metal/stone/etc., and image – whereas in conceptual art the
medium is the subject itself. That’s why in traditional art artists should possess
strong skills of modification of their associated medium through which give the
viewer access to their art practice to be appreciated, but in conceptual art
there’s no representation of an object by medium through which the viewer could
access the artwork. The artwork is the medium itself.
 |
| Joseph Kosuth - One and Three Chairs - 1965 In this piece which one is the subject? The chair? Its image? Or the dictionary definition of the chair? |
In the last decades of 20th
century artists and critics started to question the nature of art. The notion
of questioning the art started after formalist definition of medium used in art
production by influential art critic Clement Greenberg during 1950s. Based on
Greenberg’s critic the role of medium in traditional art is merely concealed by
presentation of a realistic scene. Then the artists get bothered by the limitations
of the medium and treat them negatively. This is while in modern art the
medium’s properties are part of the representation that define the nature of
work of art. Based on Greenberg’s refinement each discipline of art production
should follow specific characters based on which that discipline is distinct
from others. For example a painting should be a flat surface on canvas on which
the pigments are applied and all other specifications that are not in this
frame should be removed to enable others to call it a painting. Artists of the
time started a movement posing against Greenberg’s manifest which led to
emergence of dematerialization and following that conceptualism. The growing
concerns over the credibility of art medium as well as representation caused
conceptual artists such as Kosuth, Barry, and Weiner to start a more radical
questioning the art and the dominant assumption that the role of artist is to
use their skills to make specific material objects.
After Marcel Duchamp claimed
ready-made as artwork through submitting a urine with a fake name autographed
on it on 1916 the whole art world rejected his claim on the piece (being called
Fountain) as a work of art. Later on 1960 Kosuth in his essay titled Art
after Philosophy asserted that all artworks after Duchamp is considered as
conceptual art as art exists within its concept. Barry also started to minimize
the level of material involvement in his works every time he worked on a new
series. He heavily shifted the load of interpretation of the work on the
viewer’s understanding trying to introduce stronger author-viewer-object
relationship.
Dematerialization has been
actually one of the first steps involved in introduction of conceptual art to
the world. In traditional art the artist should produce the work of art through
her/his skills and the result is an object through which the artist reach out
the viewers. The viewer, then, has access to the artwork through that object
and is able to appreciate it. In conceptual art, though, the artist’s skills
are not of such importance and even the quality of the object doesn’t matter as
much it does in traditional art. Sometimes there’s even no fabrication process
involved like what ready-mades offers. So how we can realize if they are art?
Ontological conceptualism
which has been used the first time by Robert Pincus-Witten has the answer.
Ontological conceptualism is the discourse through which we are able to find
the start and end points of a conceptual art work. It concerns the meaning and
the reason in background of the artwork, in the other word, it addresses the
idea of the artwork.
Dematerialization in fact makes
a line to separate the medium and the means. In traditional art artists shape
and apply the medium to represent a thing whilst in conceptual art the medium
itself is the meaning of the art work. Where Barry minimizes the paints and the
brush strokes on his paintings and instead uses couple of canvases each with
only one element on them to connect three canvases the artist tries to use the
canvas as a mean of connection, as a concept or narration that target the
philosophy of connection and to make the viewer think of that concept. Here the
artist doesn’t paint an object on his canvas, the canvas itself is the object
to convey the artist’s meaning, to transform a viewer from a merely “watch man”
to an “interpretation agent”.
All these doesn’t mean that
the material is to be eliminated from the art work, but its role has been shifted.
So to appreciate a work of conceptual art and being able to talk it “the thing”
should be there whether an empty canvas, whether a performance, whether a cast
of light, etc. the main purpose is making the viewer to not only watch a visual
production but experience it, to live it, and sometimes be part of it.
Reference:
Boundless, 2014, Conceptual
Art, Internet, License CC-BY-SA 4.0, Downloaded
on Sep. 27, 2014,
<https://www.boundless.com/art-history/textbooks/boundless-art-history-
textbook/global-art-since-1950-37/dematerialization-235/conceptual-art-835-5799/>
Goldie, P. and Schellekens,
E., 2010, “The Challenge of Conceptual Art”, Who’s Afraid of
Conceptual Art?, pp 1-34, Routledge, US and Canada,
Print.
Jones, Ronald, 2009, “Art You
Experienced?”, Frieze Magazine, Issue 20, Internet, Downloaded
on Sep. 27, 2014, < http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/are_you_experienced/>
Wyman, Jessica, 2014,
Dematerialization, Collection of Course Reading for VISA3B09, OCAD U,
(pp 17-38)
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