Conceptual Art

The photograph above, called “The Three Cows”, was my reaction to Joseph Kosuth’s “One and Three Chairs”, created in 1965.

When we started learning about conceptual art and Joseph Kosuth’s work was presented to us, I was, to put it mildly, outraged. I find it quite amusing now to think back to how strongly I reacted. During our break, I ranted about people paying money for supposedly worthless exhibition pieces and how the whole art world seemed to be full of con men and idiots.

I am sure Helen and Barton, our tutors, had a good chuckle over my reaction. Looking back, I probably behaved exactly as they expected me to, and perhaps exactly as they had planned.

While I was still not so silently fuming, I decided the best thing I could do was make my own artwork. I took a leather jacket I was in the middle of dismantling, found a generic picture of two cows from an internet site that allowed people to use its images, added a sign saying “Three Cows”, and pinned the whole thing onto the wall where we displayed and discussed our work.

And there it was. My very sarcastic parody of conceptual art.

Strangely, once I had made it, I felt a lot better. I had managed to turn all that irritation into something of my own. It was silly, sarcastic and probably not particularly clever, but it made me laugh and, more importantly, it got the frustration out of my head. I could then get back to making the sort of art I actually enjoyed.

Looking back now, I can see that something had happened without me really noticing. I had started by thinking that conceptual art was ridiculous, and yet here I was making my own piece because of the reaction it had created in me. Perhaps that was the bit I was supposed to learn.

I still don’t completely understand conceptual art, and I am still not sure whether some of it is a complete rip-off by con men or an act of genius. I do know that it made me angry enough to make something, and perhaps that is more useful than I gave it credit for at the time.

I’m still undecided. But at least now I can be undecided without ranting quite so much.

Joseph Kosuth. One and Three Chairs. 1965