Joseph Kosuth

This work is the first and most famous example of Kosuth's series of One and Three installations, in which he assembled an object, a photograph of that object, and an enlarged dictionary definition of the object. It questions what actually constitutes a chair in our thinking: is it the solid object we see and use or is it the word "chair" that we use to identify it and communicate it to others? Furthermore, it confronts us with how we use words to explain and define visible, tangible, ordinary things, how words represent, describe, or signify things, and how this often becomes more complex when the thing is simple, fundamental, or intangible. Thus, it explores how language plays an integral role in conveying meaning and identity. It makes us more aware of why and how words become the verbal and written equivalents for commonplace tangible, solid things and objects.

Kosuth continued this exact formula in subsequent works, employing a shovel, hammer, lamp, and even a photograph itself (including a photograph of the photograph and definition of "photograph"). This is one of the first Conceptual works of art that was intended to eliminate any sense of authorship or individual expression and creativity.

Five Words in Orange Neon is among the many language-based works Kosuth made using neon lights and a transformer, all of which were inspired by Wittgenstein's explorations of tautologies. In logic and linguistics, as established largely by Wittgenstein, a tautology is a statement of fundamental fact or truth which is unchangeable and irreversible, even if rephrased in any way possible. The meaning of the phrase is equated with how the words are visualized. In this case, they are shown with orange neon tubes shaped to form the words of the phrase. Kosuth plays with linguistic and verbal literalness by giving us a visual equivalent in the neon letters to what the text reads regardless of its form. As with his other Conceptual works of the 1960s, the idea is considered more important and fundamental than the visual or aesthetic content or expression of an artwork. It was a radical reconsideration of the importance of the visual in visual art.

After beginning his One and Three series, Kosuth wanted to further remove images and objects from his language-based Conceptual art, and this led to his Art as Idea as Idea series. In these works, he produced enlarged photostats of definitions of words that look like they came from dictionaries, which he then mounted on walls similar to how paintings, drawings, or photographs would be exhibited. He makes the viewer aware of the multiple identities and types of existence that these various things have, as solid objects and tangible things, as mechanical reproductions that are quickly made and mass-produced, and as verbal, written, and intangible equivalents. This challenges us to think of how we would define or explain simple, ordinary things that we see and use in our daily lives.

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient artifact that has been on display at the British Museum since 1802 and is considered by historians and anthropologists to be essential to understanding the language of ancient Egypt. Since it presents virtually the same text, a decree issued by Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy V in 196 BCE, in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic script, and Ancient Greek, it is a historical artifact that shows how three different languages express the same message. Thus, it was perfectly suited to Kosuth's interest in the equivalents among languages and between things as well as in the ways language is used to identify, explain, and describe objects. The Rosetta Stone is a historical precedent to Kosuth's work, such as his One and Three series, since the same statement is presented three times in the Egyptian artifact and the same thing is presented as words, an object, and a photographic reproduction in the artist's series. In the late 1980s, Kosuth began fabricating, with the help of many assistants, a giant copy of the face of the Rosetta Stone placed flat on the sidewalk as a public installation in the town of Figeac right near the home of Jean-François Champollion, an Egyptologist who was involved with the original translation.

In 1993, Kosuth created Double Reading, a series of about twenty silkscreen prints on laminated glass that were illuminated from behind with neon lights. In each of these works, a cartoon from a newspaper or magazine with dialogue and captions is juxtaposed with a quote from a famous philosopher, theologian, political leader, and so on. Some of these works use cartoons with lots of text and long quotes while others are quite brief. In this work, a cartoon of a man in a large office filled with rectangular furniture, lighting, windows, and doors uses his intercom to ask his secretary to bring him a "round object." This cartoon is accompanied by a short quote from St. Augustine: "Dogmas are fences around the mystery." The viewer is encouraged to contemplate the situation illustrated humorously in the illustration by comparing it to the more serious and rather theoretical text from an earlier and different time in history and culture. The multiple, complex, and variable meanings of the profound quote are made noticeable in ways that are quite gradual and subtle. In this example, St. Augustine's quote could mean that religious dogma provides the means for understanding life and the Divine or it could be suggesting the control and constraint of thinking. If it is the latter, is this ambiguity or contradiction intended by St. Augustine, has it been accidently created by him, or is it a conclusion that Kosuth has reached and is attempting to demonstrate for the viewer?

Kosuth's neon works have typically employed only single words or short tautological phrases that could be viewed in their entirety at a glance. Á Propos, however, is a work in the Jewish Museum's 2004 installation of 86 quotations of various lengths from dozens of philosophers. Kosuth uses longer texts for this neon installation and highlights many of his most important intellectual and philosophical influences. The quotations were arranged in horizontal and vertical patterns that have little rhyme or reason with regard to their placement but are designed as a compilation of multiple philosophical perspectives. This text by Claude Levi-Strauss reads "Marx's and Freud's combined lesson: they have taught us that man has meaning only on the condition that he view himself as meaningful." The central goal of the entire installation was to demonstrate how philosophy is very much about dialogues and arguments among philosophers from different eras and places. This is an important example of Kosuth's interest in literature, philosophy, history, and in the exploration of important writings that facilitate our understanding of and connection to the ideas of important historical figures and movements.