Can Kant’s Aesthetics
Accommodate Conceptual Art?
A
Reply to Costello
Ioannis Trisokkas·
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Abstract
Diarmuid
Costello has recently argued that, contra received opinion, Kant’s aesthetics
can accommodate conceptual art, as well as all other art. Costello offers an
interpretation of Kant’s art theory that demands from all art a minimal
structure involving three basic “players” (the artist, the artwork, the
artwork’s recipient) and three basic “actions” corresponding to those
“players.” The article takes issue with the “action” assigned by Costello’s
Kant to the artwork’s recipient,
namely that her imagination generates a multitude of playful thoughts deriving
from or in any other way relating to the concept or idea that the artist has
instilled in the artwork and that the artwork transmits to the recipient. It is
argued that the “proper” recipient of conceptual art may very well have a
multitude of thoughts that are all irrelevant
to the concept or idea the artist has instilled in the artwork, even if the
artwork has transmitted that concept or idea to the recipient. This shows that
Kant’s art theory, as presented by Costello, cannot accommodate conceptual art.
I conclude by suggesting that either one of two amendments to the theory’s
account of the recipient’s experience could enable it to accommodate conceptual
art.
Key
words
Kant; conceptual art; ideality; kindred
thoughts; aesthetics; Costello
1. Introduction
Can
Kant’s aesthetics accommodate conceptual art? The standard view in the
artworld, influenced by the work of the prolific art critic Clement Greenberg,
is that it cannot (Greenberg 1986-1993, 1999). Greenberg presented Kantian
aesthetics as an instance of aesthetic
formalism, the view that an object is
art solely because of the intuitable
aesthetic attributes of its sensible form rather than because of any
intellectual content or idea it might possess (Wood 2005, p. 158).[1]
For the formalists “art is made [solely] to be looked at” (Wood 2002, p. 15)
and its affect is the aesthetic feeling,
which is an element opposed to thoughts or ideas.[2]
Wood puts it well, when he writes that in aesthetic formalism there is an “exclusive focus on the aesthetic,” to
wit, on the artwork’s sensible form (Wood 2002, p. 28). Conceptual art, by contrast, is usually understood as that kind of
art that “foregrounds art’s intellectual content, and the thought processes
associated with that content over its form” (Costello 2007, p. 93).
Historically, conceptual artists reacted against “claims that painting
‘appealed to eyesight alone’, that visual art’s ‘primordial condition’ was that
it is made to be looked at” (Wood 2002, p.28), and emphasized the ideas that come to the fore in artistic
experience (without, of course, denying the existence of the artwork’s sensible
form). As Wood expresses it, in conceptual art “the Idea was king” (Wood, 2002,
p. 33) - contrastingly, it may be said that in formalism “the sensible form
(the aesthetic) was king” - and in the famous words of Kosuth (cited in Wood
2002, p. 35), “the actual works of art are the ideas.” Lewitt, equally
famously, writes that “in conceptual art the idea or concept is the most
important aspect of the work” (Lewitt, 1967, p. 12). These characterizations of
“aesthetic formalism” and “conceptual art” are incompatible, hence the
deduction that Kantian aesthetics (which Greenberg takes to be an instance of
aesthetic formalism) cannot accommodate conceptual art.
In a couple of essays published in the
second half of the 2000s (Costello 2007, 2009), Diarmuid Costello made a
convincing case against Greenberg’s
identification of Kant’s aesthetics with modern aesthetic formalism. Indeed,
that Kant understands the artwork as an aesthetic idea that “prompts much thought” (CJ 5, p. 314)[3]
or, again, “give[s] the imagination a momentum which makes it think” (CJ 5, p.
315) gives a decisive blow to that identification. It follows that the above
“deduction” must be rejected and the question “can Kant’s aesthetics
accommodate conceptual art?” can be raised once again.
In those same essays Costello defends an
affirmative answer to the question. He does this by providing an interpretation
of Kant’s art theory and arguing that this theory, so interpreted, applies to
conceptual art in the same way it applies to all other art. Despite the novelty
of Costello’s essays and their importance concerning the attempt to bring
Kant’s aesthetic theory in dialogue with modern art, there has not been, as far
as I know, even a single discussion of them. In the present article I take
issue with Costello’s affirmative answer to the question and endeavor to
convince the reader that Kant’s art theory, as presented by Costello, applies
neither to conceptual art nor to all other art. Nevertheless, I conclude by
arguing that, if Costello’s Kant accepts either one of two amendments to his
art theory, the latter can be said to be able to accommodate all art, including
conceptual art.
A number of things should be noted before I
commence. First, it must be emphasized that I am not interested in judging the
correctness of Costello’s interpretation. So, I will not examine whether or not
his interpretation survives scholarly scrutiny. My sole concern is whether
Costello’s interpretation, accepted as it
is, justifies his affirmative answer to our question. So, the title
question should be understood to mean, more precisely, “can Kant’s aesthetics, as interpreted by Costello, accommodate
conceptual art?”[4]
Second, as it will become apparent,
Costello’s Kant understands art as involving three basic “players”: the artist,
the artwork, and the artwork’s recipient (spectator, listener, etc.). He also
understands their basic “action” as follows:
(a)
the artist creates the artwork and instills therein an idea;
(b)
the artwork affects the recipient through the “aesthetic attributes” of its
sensible form and thereby transmits the artist’s idea to her mind;
(c)
the recipient “expands” that idea into a multitude of playful thoughts that are
“kindred” or “related” with that idea.
Each
of these “actions” is a necessary
condition of art and therefore if an object is to be labelled an artwork, each of these “actions” must be
satisfied. It is not stated that
these “actions” are also sufficient conditions, so there may be also other
elements that need to be materialized before one is able to label an object
“art,” according to Kant. However, an examination of the sufficient conditions
of art in Kant’s art theory will have to wait for another occasion.
Third, although the whole discussion is
based on my understanding of Costello as suggesting or implying that the above
conditions are necessary conditions of art,
the objection I will raise against his position would undermine it even if he
took those conditions to be necessary conditions of beautiful or good or successful art. This is so because the
counterexamples I will provide are not threatened in any way by the supposition
that Costello regards the paradigmatic examples he provides in support of his
argument as works of beautiful or good or successful art rather than simply as
works of art.[5]
Fourth, to answer fully the question “can
Kant’s aesthetics accommodate conceptual art?” one must examine each of the aforementioned three
“actions” in relation to conceptual art.
In the present article, though, I will take the first two “actions” as granted
and focus solely on the third. Therefore, my critique of Kant’s art theory, as
interpreted by Costello, targets neither Kant’s conception of the artist’s
activity nor how he views the artwork’s affecting the recipient but rather only how he understands the
experience of the artwork’s recipient. It follows that no objection to my
argument can be raised that addresses either the thesis that the artist causes
the presence of an idea in the artwork or the thesis that the recipient’s
thoughts are caused by the artwork. It cannot be suggested, for example, that
the recipient’s thoughts could have a different source than the artwork. These
claims, which are by no means unproblematic, are simply taken for granted here
and hence the reader should simply go along with them.
The focus of the paper is the “action” of
the recipient of conceptual art. This “action” is that the recipient “expands”
the idea she receives causally from the artwork into a multitude of playful
(loose, not fully developed) thoughts that are “kindred” or “related” with that
idea. The term “recipient” will throughout signify the recipient of art who
pays full attention to her artistic experience and is not absent-minded or in
an illusory or indifferent state of mind and, moreover, does not impose her own
individual practical or theoretical interests on this experience, namely who is
truly “disinterested” in the Kantian sense (CJ 5, pp. 204-205). This is a “proper
recipient” of art (or, if you will, of beautiful or good or successful art).
The reader should understand the term “recipient” to mean throughout “proper
recipient” in the specific sense I have just explained. I am not interested in
“improper recipients” and all specific recipients thematized in the paper will
be “proper” ones.
I proceed as follows. Section 2 presents
Costello’s interpretation of Kant’s art theory. It is stressed that for
Costello’s Kant any given “proper”
recipient of an artwork has a multitude of playful thoughts (caused by the
artwork) that are kindred with the
particular idea the artist has instilled in that artwork. Section 3 makes the
point that there are “proper” recipients of art other than conceptual art whose
imagination generates a multitude of playful thoughts that are irrelevant to the particular idea the
artist has instilled in the artwork. Section 4 argues that conceptual art is no
different from all other art on this issue: there are “proper” recipients of
conceptual art whose imagination generates a multitude of thoughts that are irrelevant to - or, if you will, not “kindred” with - the artwork’s ideal
content. Therefore, Costello is wrong: Kant’s aesthetics cannot accommodate
conceptual art. Section 5 discusses a rejoinder Costello could offer to the
conclusion of the previous section. It is argued that the rejoinder must be
rejected. Finally, in section 6 I discuss two amendments to the Kantian art
theory and claim that either one of them could enable it to accommodate conceptual
art, as well as all other art.
2. Costello’s Interpretation of
Kant’s Art Theory
In
this section I present Costello’s interpretation of Kant’s art theory (Costello
2007, 2009). The basis of Kant’s art theory, according to Costello, is the claim
that artworks are “aesthetic ideas” (Costello 2007, p. 101; Costello 2009, p.
128). Kant defines “aesthetic idea” as follows:
[By] an aesthetic idea I
mean a presentation of the imagination which prompts much thought,[6]
but to which no determinate thought whatsoever, i.e., no concept, can be
adequate, so that no language can express it completely and allow us to grasp
it. (CJ 5, p. 314)
The
claim that the artwork is an aesthetic idea
determines the artwork in a twofold manner, namely with respect to its content
and with respect to the way it presents that content through its sensible form
(Costello 2007, p. 101; Costello 2009, p. 128). (The adjective “aesthetic” in
the term “aesthetic idea” refers to the form
of the artwork (rather than to its content).) Let me discuss these two aspects
in turn:
(i) With respect to its content, the artwork is determined
either as a complete concept or as an idea. (a) A complete concept is an everyday concept whose objects can be
presented in intuition but which, as soon as it becomes an artwork’s content,
acquires “a completeness that experience itself never affords” (Costello 2007,
p. 101). At this juncture, Kant refers to the poet who ventures to give
concepts such as death, envy, love and fame that are exemplified in experience “sensible expression in a way that
goes beyond the limits of experience, namely with a completeness for which no
example can be found in nature” (CJ 5, p. 314). (b) An idea is a mental element whose object cannot be presented in
intuition, such as the idea of freedom (Costello 2007, p. 101; Costello 2009,
p. 128). Kant writes that, when their content is an idea, artworks “do at least
strive toward something that lies beyond the bounds of experience and hence try
to approach an exhibition of rational concepts [i.e. ideas]” (CJ 5, p. 314).
There is, then, a difference between complete concepts and ideas: while
complete concepts have objects that are intuitable, ideas have objects that are
not intuitable. There is also a similarity between them: they are both
totalities or wholes, capturing everything there is to capture concerning something
(e.g. death or freedom). It is this totality that is missed when complete
concepts are presented in intuition. Ideas, in their turn, are never presented
in intuition. The artwork has the ability to present to the mind an
approximation of the totality of both complete concepts and ideas through the
mediation of sensible form. This brings us to the issue of the presentation of
the content of the aesthetic idea.
(ii) With respect to the way it presents its content through its form, the artwork is
determined as an object that “expands” the concept or the idea it has as its
content “by virtue of the indirect means through which [it] embod[ies] [it]
[i.e. the concept or idea] in sensible form” (Costello 2007, p. 101). In other
words, the artwork, by means of its sensible form, “expands” the concept or the
idea it has as its content. Crucially, this “expansion” refers to the relation
the recipient has to the artwork’s content: the latter is “expanded” in the recipient’s mind. The “expanded”
concept or idea is not identical with
the complete concept or the idea that is the artwork’s content. It amounts only
to a process of approximating it,
hence Kant’s claim that no concept can be adequate to the aesthetic idea (the
artwork). As noted, neither the complete concept (as complete) nor the idea can have a presence in intuition. Yet, what
distinguishes the artwork regarding its content’s presentation is that through
its “aesthetic attributes” (i.e. its sensible form) it leads the recipient’s
imagination to generate a potentially endless series of thoughts (hence Kant’s
claim that “an aesthetic idea [...] prompts much thought”) relating to the
complete concept or the idea that is the artwork’s content. The phrase
“expanded concept or idea” refers exactly to this “endless relating.” As Kant
puts it, through its “aesthetic attributes” (sensible form) the artwork
expresses its content’s “implications” and “kinship with other concepts” (CJ 5,
p. 315). These characterizations are crucial for our forthcoming discussion.
For Costello’s Kant, the endless series of thoughts the recipient’s imagination
generates are (somehow) implied by
the complete concept or the idea that is the artwork’s content and are kindred concepts. The important thing
for us is that for Costello’s Kant the thoughts the recipient has - thoughts
which have been caused by the artwork - have a “kinship” with the concept or
the idea of the artwork. To say the least, what the recipient thinks when she
is affected by the artwork concerns
or is about - in one way or another -
the particular concept or idea the artist has instilled in the artwork. This aboutness is peculiar to the art theory
Costello ascribes to Kant.
Note here, also crucially, that when
Costello’s Kant speaks of the
recipient’s experience, he means any
given recipient’s experience (Costello 2007, p. 103). “The recipient” is
the general “proper” recipient, any given
person who has “proper” experience of a real artwork. So, Kant’s art theory, as
interpreted by Costello, contends that any
given “proper” recipient’s imagination generates an endless series of
thoughts which are kindred with the artwork’s conceptual or ideal content.
To clarify what it means for the artwork to
be an aesthetic idea, Kant gives the example of an artistic depiction of
“Jupiter’s eagle with the lightning in its claws” (CJ 5, p. 315). According to
the above, this artwork must contain an idea, which is then “expanded” in the
recipient’s mind when she experiences the artwork’s “aesthetic attributes.”
This idea, Kant tells us, is the idea of God’s majesty (CJ 5, p. 315). The
“expansion” is possible because the artwork’s “aesthetic attributes” (its form)
have a certain affinity with what
Kant calls the “logical attributes” of the complete concept or the idea which
is the artwork’s content, in this case the idea of God’s majesty. This affinity
has the specific character of “a metaphorical
expression” of the logical attributes “through which [metaphor] we are
encouraged to envisage God’s majesty in the light of the thoughts provoked by
Jupiter’s eagle, thereby opening up a rich seam of further associations”
(Costello 2007, p. 102). Recall here that this “rich seam of further associations”
is (somehow) implicated by or derived from the idea comprising the artwork’s
content and, therefore, that the “associations” are “kindred” with one another and with the idea. The “associations”
are about or of the particular idea the artist has instilled in the artwork. As
Kant himself puts it,
aesthetic attributes
[...] prompt the imagination to spread over a multitude of kindred
presentations that arouse more thought than can be expressed in a concept
determined by words. These aesthetic attributes yield an aesthetic idea [whose] proper function is to quicken [or enliven; beleben] the mind by opening up for it a
view into an immense realm of kindred presentations. (CJ 5, p. 315)
Artworks,
then, as aesthetic ideas, are distinguished from other things by their capacity
to present complete concepts or ideas in intuition through their “aesthetic
attributes” (sensible form) in such a way that, as noted in the above excerpt,
“the imagination is spread over [an endless] multitude of kindred presentations.”
To clarify this even more, Costello adds
another example to Kant’s own: a consideration of Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People to Victory
(1830) (Costello 2007, p. 102; Costello 2009, p. 129). The content of this
well-known painting, Costello tells us, is the idea of freedom. Its “aesthetic
attributes” bring forth – metaphorically – this idea in such a way that any
given “proper” recipient’s mind initiates a potentially endless stream of
thoughts about freedom. This is
Costello’s own application of Kant’s theory to Delacroix’s painting:
[Delacroix’s painting] is
a sensuous embodiment of the idea of freedom. The aesthetic attributes through
which freedom is personified in the guise of “Liberty,” and shown leading her
people to victory (fearlessness, spontaneity, resoluteness, leadership, all
attributes of an active self-determining will) while holding a flag, symbol of
freedom from oppression, aloft in one hand and clutching a musket in the other,
serve to “aesthetically expand” the idea of freedom itself. By presenting
freedom metaphorically in the guise of “Liberty” in this way, freedom is
depicted concretely as something worth fighting for, indeed, as something
requiring courage and fortitude to attain. Through the expression of ideas in
this way, Kant claims, works of art “quicken the mind” [...]. [A]esthetic ideas
stimulate the imagination to range freely and widely over an “immense realm of
kindred presentations.” As such [aesthetic ideas], works of art stimulate the
mind, albeit in a less structured way than determinate thought, by encouraging
us to think about such ideas in a new
light. (Costello 2007, pp. 102-103, my emphasis)
Costello
specifies here that the “expansion” of the complete concept or the idea in the
recipient’s mind is “less structured” than the development of a concept by
means of philosophical or scientific thinking (cf. Wood 2005, p. 166). The
mental “associations” that the recipient’s imagination generates are “freely”
interconnected, that is, in a playful, interrupted, undeveloped or
underdeveloped, loose manner. Yet, we should always remember that this “free”
relationality or interconnection is not as free as to ever break the relation
or “kinship” (the aboutness) with the
complete concept or the idea that is the artwork’s content. The “kind of
free-wheeling, associative play in which the imagination moves freely and
swiftly from one partial presentation of a concept to another” (Costello 2007,
p. 103) remains always tied to the complete concept or the idea the artwork has
been infused with. This is why Kant labels the “free play” generated by the
artwork “the free play of imagination and
understanding.” The understanding maintains a connection to the
imagination’s “spread[ing] over a multitude of kindred presentations that arouse
more thought than can be expressed in a concept” (CJ 5, p. 135) precisely by
securing that the multitude of presentations the imagination generates is a
multitude of kindred presentations
or, as Costello puts it, “partial
presentation[s] of a [i.e., one]
concept” (Costello 2007, p. 103; for more on the “free play” understood in this
way see Rogerson 2008, pp. 20-23). In the words of the above long quotation,
artworks cause us to think “in a new light” but always “about such ideas.”
The “immense realm of kindred
presentations” (CJ 5, p. 315) that the “free play of imagination and
understanding” generates in any given “proper” recipient’s mind gives rise to a
“feeling of life” in that recipient. This is a “feeling of mental vitality”
that mirrors the feeling the artist had when she made the artwork, that is,
when she created an aesthetic idea (Costello 2007, p. 103; Costello 2009, p.
131). What enabled the artist to create an aesthetic idea and thereby both
acquire and pass on to the recipient “the feeling of life” is her “genius”.
Genius is a faculty of the mind that, as Kant puts it, “discover[s] [aesthetic]
ideas for a given concept” and “hit[s] upon a way of expressing these ideas
that enables us to communicate to others [...] the mental attunement [...]
those ideas produce” (CJ 5, p. 317). As Costello has it, “genius [...] is the
ability to ‘communicate’ the free play of the faculties [...] and thereby
occasion a similarly enlivening cognitive play in the work’s recipient”
(Costello 2007, p. 103). It is also important, though, that genius
“communicates” the free play of the faculties without getting out of the
boundaries of the “given concept” for which it develops the aesthetic
idea.
This, in a nutshell, is what Costello’s
Kant thinks about art: the artwork is created by an artist who instills in it
or maybe associates it with a particular concept or idea in such a way that its
“aesthetic attributes” (i.e., its sensible form) cause any given “proper”
recipient’s mind to generate an immense multitude of kindred thoughts, to wit, thoughts (somehow) deriving from or
implied by that particular concept or idea and hence being about or of it. This
account of art involves three basic “players”: the artist, the artwork, and the
recipient; and three basic “actions”: the artist’s creating the artwork and
instilling a particular idea in it, the artwork’s affecting the recipient
aesthetically and transferring this idea to her mind, and the recipient’s
“expanding” the idea into a multitude of playful thoughts that are kindred with
(that are about or of) that particular idea.
Costello argues that Kant’s art theory, so interpreted, can accommodate
conceptual art, as well as all other art (Costello 2007, 2009). This simply
means that, like all other art (or beautiful or good or successful art) does,
conceptual art involves minimally (and, therefore, necessarily) the
aforementioned three basic “players” and three basic “actions.” In what follows
I grant Costello’s Kant the claim that art (or good art etc.) minimally
involves these “players.” I also grant him the basic “actions” of the artist
and the artwork (although they actually face several philosophical difficulties
and objections [see Schellekens 2017]). I focus on the third basic “action” –
the “action” of the recipient – and
argue that Kant’s account of it, as presented by Costello, can be challenged
both as an account that supposedly applies to conceptual art and as an account
that supposedly applies to all other art (or good art etc.).
3. Why the Kantian Art Theory
cannot Accommodate All Art other than
Conceptual Art
In
the present section I argue that Kant’s account of the recipient’s experience,
as presented by Costello, is false as an account that supposedly applies to all art other than conceptual art.
Recall that for Costello’s Kant the “proper” recipient’s experience, consisting
of kindred thoughts, is a necessary condition of art and is caused by the
artwork. As seen, Costello supports his interpretation of Kant with two
examples: any given “proper” recipient’s experience of the artistic depiction
of Jupiter’s eagle and any given “proper” recipient’s experience of Delacroix’s
Liberty. I will show that the
examples do not hold and that this proves that Kant’s account, as presented by
Costello, cannot be said to apply to all
art other than conceptual art.
Before I focus on the examples, let me note
the important point that Costello himself acknowledges that the question what
art fundamentally involves has very little to gain from answers given by the
artists qua artists:
[T]he art world [...]
[has the] unfortunate tendency to take works of art at their producer’s word,
when artists are about as interested, and hence potentially as unreliable, guides to their own artistic
achievement as one could hope to find. (Costello 2007, p. 111, n. 43)
This
means: what the artists say about what makes their work art (or beautiful or
good or successful art) should not be accepted uncritically or as the final
word on the matter. Costello does well to point this out, because if he did
not, the Kantian art theory he proposes would immediately collapse. For the formalist artist claims that what makes
an object art are solely its
“aesthetic properties,” its sensible form, rather than any conceptual or ideal
content. Since Kant’s art theory, as presented by Costello, (a) contradicts
aesthetic formalism and (b) aesthetic formalism would be true, according to
what “formalist” artists claim, the Kantian theory would not be universal, as
it claims to be.
Costello’s point regarding the value of the
artists’ statements is relevant here because it applies also to the issue of
the recipient’s experience. Whether Kant’s account of this experience is true
or false should be decided by considering, not the claims of the artists, but
rather the logical or rational facts about such an experience. With this caveat
in mind, let us now turn to Costello’s examples.
Recall that Kant’s art theory, as presented
by Costello, demands that any given
“proper” recipient has the specified experience. I will now refer to possible
cases - in fact, really possible cases (to use a Kantian
notion), because they can be materialized in the present world without any
alterations - that undermine the necessity of this demand.
First, let us posit a recipient called
Doris. Doris observes and reflects on an artistic depiction of Jupiter’s eagle
with the lightning in its claws. She is not absent-minded, is very serious
about artistic appreciation, and has absolutely no practical or theoretical interest
that could cloud her judgment in this case. She is, therefore, fully
“disinterested” (in the Kantian sense) and a “proper” recipient of art. Yet,
while in this occasion Doris’s imagination generates several thoughts,
playfully connected with one another, these
thoughts are completely unrelated to the idea of God’s majesty. What she
actually thinks of is the idea of the dominance of nature over man. She also
thinks of the kingdom of birds and the endless variety of their species. This
gives rise to her having multiple thoughts on the concept “bird” and the
concept “flying.” The important thing is that while Doris does indeed have a
multitude of playfully interconnected thoughts, as the Kantian theory demands,
these thoughts exhibit no relation whatsoever to the artwork’s particular
content. Since it cannot be denied that this is Doris’s real experience of the
depiction of Jupiter’s eagle, does it follow that this depiction is not art, as
the Kantian account would have us believe? (Recall that for Costello’s Kant the
“proper” recipient’s experience is caused
by the artwork and consists of thoughts that are kindred with the idea of the artwork. This is a necessary condition
of art.) Yet, if Costello’s Kant claimed this, there would be a contradiction,
because the example has been used by him precisely in order to clarify what it
means for an object to be art (or good art etc.): Costello’s Kant would in this
instance claim both that the depiction of Jupiter’s eagle is art and that it is
not art.
Second, let us posit another actual
recipient called Steven. Steven is a historian of art and is therefore aware
that when he experiences Delacroix’s Liberty,
he should think of freedom in a variety of ways. Yet, when Steven visits the
museum this morning and comes face-to-face with Delacroix’s masterpiece, his
mind thinks of anything but freedom: he thinks of the nature and concept of
colour, his childhood friends and the concept of friendship, the anatomy of the
human body and the concept of body in general, and many other things irrelevant to the idea of freedom.
Steven was in this occasion very focused on his artistic experience, was not
absent-minded or in a state of illusion, and no practical or theoretical
interest of his interfered with his experience in any way. He was, therefore, a
“proper” recipient. Does this experience of a “really possible” recipient show,
as Costello’s Kant would have us believe, that Delacroix’s painting is not art?
Again, an affirmative answer would generate a contradiction, for Costello has
used the example precisely in order to clarify what it means for an object to
be art (or good art etc.): Costello’s Kant would in this instance claim both
that Delacroix’s painting is art and that it is not art.
The above two cases are meant to show that
the Kantian account of the recipient’s experience, as presented by Costello,
cannot accommodate all art other than
conceptual art. Recall that for Costello’s Kant the “proper” recipient’s mind
is caused by the artwork to have a stream of playful thoughts that are kindred with the complete concept or the
idea the artist has instilled in the artwork. Such kinship (or “aboutness”) is,
moreover, a necessary condition of art. The above counterexamples have shown
that there is art (or good art etc.) affecting some recipients in such a way
that they have a multitude of thoughts, playfully interconnected, that are irrelevant to the artwork’s particular
conceptual or ideal content. This result does not exclude the possibility of a
positive answer to the question “can Kant’s aesthetics accommodate conceptual art?”. Yet, it has now been
made clear that Kant’s aesthetics, as interpreted by Costello, can be said to
accommodate conceptual art only if
there is something about conceptual art that prevents any given “proper” recipient’s imagination from generating
a multitude of playful thoughts that are
all irrelevant to the complete concept or the idea that is the conceptual
artwork’s content. To this issue I now turn.
4. Why the Kantian Art Theory
cannot Accommodate Conceptual Art
In
the present section I argue that Kant’s account of the recipient’s experience,
as presented by Costello, is false regarding conceptual art. To show that
Kantian aesthetics can accommodate
conceptual art, Costello considers Index
01, also known as Documenta Index,
the most famous work of Art & Language, exhibited first in 1972 (Costello
2009, pp. 130-131). This is how Costello describes the artwork:
Documenta
Index consists of a cross-referenced index of
the group’s writings on art to that date and of the relations between them.
[It] originally took the form of eight small filing cabinets, displayed on four
grey plinths, consisting of six tray-like drawers each, containing both
published writings and unpublished writings [...]. These were hinged one on top
of the other in a series of nested sequences determined alphabetically and
subalphabetically in terms of their order and degree of completion. The
cabinets and their contents were displayed together with an index listing their
contents in terms of three logical relations (of compatibility,
incompatibility, and incomparability) believed [by Art & Language] to
obtain between them. The [index] was papered directly onto the walls of the
room in which the cabinets were displayed [...]. (Costello 2009, p. 130)
Costello’s
point is that the basic requirements of Kant’s art theory are satisfied by Index 01 and the experience it gives
rise to. Its content is the idea of an exhaustive catalogue, instilled in it by
Art & Language, its creator (Costello 2009, p. 130). Its sensible form,
namely the artwork’s “aesthetic attributes,” embodies that idea and causes the
recipient’s imagination to generate a multitude of playful thoughts concerning or relating to the idea of an
exhaustive catalogue (Costello 2009, p. 130).[7]
The thoughts are about or of that particular idea. Costello
stresses that this multitude of thoughts only approximates the idea of an
exhaustive catalogue because, first, the logical relations between the
exhibited writings are endless and, second, the production of writings by Art
& Language continues after the exhibition (which means that Index 01, at any moment of its existence
after the exhibition, does not present an exhaustive catalogue). This agrees
with Kant’s account of the artwork as an aesthetic idea.
For our purposes, the important thing in
Costello’s account of Index 01 is
that he insists, in accord with his interpretation of Kant’s art theory, that
the immense realm of thoughts generated in any given “proper” recipient’s mind
by the artwork consists of “kindred” thoughts, to wit, thoughts concerning or relating to the idea of
exhaustive cataloguing. Here is how he characteristically puts it:
[By] bringing all this
together in sensible form, this apparently austere work of art opens up a
potentially limitless array of imaginative associations: to lists, taxonomies,
and typologies; to attempts at self-documentation, self-reflexivity, and
(ultimately) to ideals of complete self-knowledge or transparency; to conversation,
collaboration, interaction, study, and learning; and, of course, to various
regimes of archiving, cataloging, and the like. As such this work “expands” the
idea it embodies in ways consonant with Kant’s presentation of aesthetic ideas.
(Costello 2009, p. 131)
The
expression “and the like” Costello employs here is characteristic of how
Costello’s Kant would think of the “expansion” of the content of Index 01 in any given “proper” recipient’s
mind: it would consist of a multitude of thoughts that are relevant to or
derive from - that are about or of - the idea of exhaustive cataloguing.
Costello’s understanding of Index 01
apparently relates to the actual historical motivation of Art & Language to
make the artwork a manifestation of “the ‘continuum’, the system, the
structure-as-whole,” “a kind of generic work,” rather than a static moment of a
whole (Wood 2002, p. 29).
This view of the experience generated
causally by Index 01 to a “proper”
recipient is undermined if we consider the case of Michelle, a “really
possible” “proper” recipient of this artwork. Let us posit that Michelle, who
is a true lover of all things art, was there at the original exhibition of Documenta Index in Kessel in 1972. She
was immediately hooked and spent hours examining the work’s various pieces and
properties and reflecting on it as a whole. “This is great art,” she told
herself. Yet, all that time she spent observing the artwork she actually never
entertained even a single thought about or relating to cataloguing. Her stream
of thoughts developed in a direction altogether different from the one
described by Costello. At the very beginning she thought about writing and the
“everyday concepts” of a sentence, a word, a syllable, and a letter. “Why do
capital letters exist anyway?” she wondered. She then suddenly thought that
writing is futile and that humans would better spend their time swimming rather
than writing. She started having visions of the deep blue of the ocean and the
endless variety of its animal species. While opening one of the six drawers of
one of the eight small metal filing cabinets, her mind wandered into the depths
of the ocean, seeing a sea cave after a sea cave, sharp rocks emerging from
copses of pale green seaweed. Every time Michelle threw her gaze at the index
on the wall, she thought of the stars filling the sky dome above the ocean
during starry nights. She found herself reflecting on the concept of matter and
the idea of infinity. To make a long story short, Michelle’s experience of Index 01 supplied her with a multitude
of thoughts about the ocean, its animal species, and its environment, as well
as about writing, humanity, and infinity, rather than about cataloguing. It
should be emphasized that Michelle was, by all counts, a “proper” recipient of Index 01: she was not absent-minded or
in an illusory state of mind, she was fully “disinterested,” focused, and
immersed in the experience provided by this great piece of art.
Does Michelle’s experience of Documenta Index show, as Costello’s Kant
would have us believe, that this work is not art? (Recall that for Costello’s
Kant the artwork causes kindred thoughts to the “proper” recipient’s mind and
that this is a necessary condition of art.) Again, there is a contradiction
here: on the one hand, Kant’s art theory, as presented by Costello, suggests
that, given Michelle’s experience, Index
01 is not art; on the other hand, Costello employed this example in order
to show that Kant’s art theory accommodates conceptual art. Similar
contradictions would be generated with respect to any piece of conceptual art. For there is no conceptual artwork for
which it can be said that no “really possible” “proper” recipient can
experience it in such a way that her mind would generate a multitude of
thoughts that are irrelevant to its conceptual or ideal content.[8]
In this section I have argued that Kant’s
art theory, as interpreted by Costello, cannot accommodate conceptual art. The
reason for this is that while that theory demands that the “proper” recipient
of a conceptual artwork is led by it to have a multitude of thoughts concerning
or relating to that artwork’s conceptual or ideal content (“kindred thoughts”),
this recipient may very well have a multitude of thoughts that are irrelevant
to that content.
5. A Rejoinder and its Rejection
In
the present section I consider and reject a rejoinder Costello could offer. The
rejoinder is that Michelle’s experience does not amount to an experience of
conceptual art (or, simply, to an experience of art or good art etc.), but
rather to an experience of aesthetic formalism (which, for Costello’s Kant, is
not art or good art etc.). This is so because, the assumption would be, if we
exclude non-causal explanations of thinking, the recipient’s mind could have a
multitude of thoughts that are irrelevant
to the artwork’s content only through
its being affected by a concept-less or idea-less sensible form. That is to
say, Costello would reject outright the suggestion that a person who is
affected by a complete concept or an idea aesthetically and whose thoughts
result from this affection could have a multitude of thoughts that have nothing
at all to do with that concept or idea.
The following steps show why the rejoinder
fails. First, Costello cannot deny
that it is “really possible” for Michelle to have the experience we described
or that Michelle is a “proper” recipient of conceptual art (or of art or of
good art etc.), for there is nothing illogical or irrational regarding such
stipulation. Second, since Costello
himself labels Index 01 art (or good
art etc.), he must accept that it is its idea or concept (rather than solely
its sensible form) that causes an array of thoughts in a “proper” recipient’s
mind. Third, since Michelle is
indisputably a “proper” recipient of Index
01 and since Index 01 is indeed
art (or good art etc.), it is necessary that the idea or concept of Index 01 has caused the thoughts that
compose Michelle’s experience. Fourth,
it follows that Michelle’s experience does amount to an experience of conceptual
art (or to an experience of art or good art etc.) and, therefore, that the
rejoinder fails.
These considerations show that the
characterization of Michelle’s experience as a collapse into aesthetic
formalism can be avoided and that, in general, conceptual art is compatible
with the causal generation of a multitude of thoughts in the recipient’s mind
that are irrelevant to the content of the artwork. Nevertheless, the rejoinder
has been based on the assumption that if the recipient’s mind is affected by an
idea or concept (the artwork’s content), it cannot - through this affection -
develop thoughts that are absolutely irrelevant to that idea or concept. Michelle’s
experience shows this to be possible, but no explanation has been offered as to how exactly it is possible.
Until such an explanation is provided the rejoinder still has some force. I
suggest an explanation in the next section.
Although Costello has told us that
conceptual artists’ views about conceptual art are philosophically unreliable,
it is interesting[9]
to note that there are conceptual artists who ask for a recipient’s experience
of conceptual art that certainly can accommodate Michelle’s experience.[10]
I will briefly describe the relevant views of three “first-generation” conceptual
artists: Helio Oiticica, Sol Lewitt, and Daniel Buren.
Oiticica describes conceptual art as
exemplifying “a totally anarchic position,” in the sense that it allows the
recipient’s thinking a maximum “degree of liberty” (Oiticica 1966). Such liberty
amounts to the recipient’s being offered “innumerable possibilities” of
thinking. Oiticica suggests that the idea included in the conceptual artwork
does not hinder in any way the
recipient’s thinking: it can take any
direction whatsoever. As he notes,
conceptual art does not seek “to impose upon him [i.e. the recipient] an ‘idea’
[...], but [only] to give him a simple opportunity to participate, so that he
‘finds’ there [i.e. in a conceptual artwork] something he may want to realize.”
The aim of conceptual art, Oiticica insists, is not to make us think what the
artist had in mind but rather to make “man” think “within himself and [realize]
his vital creative possibilities.” It is all
about “the freedom of ‘choosing’ of anyone to whom participation is proposed.”[11]
Lewitt makes it clear that the conceptual
artist must ensure that “the physical and emotive power of the form” does not
overpower “the idea of the piece” (Lewitt 1967, p. 15). This “idea of the
piece” has originated in the artist’s mind and has directed her in making the
artwork. Yet, when he turns his attention to the recipient or “the viewer,”
Lewitt states that
it doesn’t really matter
if the viewer understands the concepts of the artist by seeing the art. Once
out of his hand the artist has no control over the way a viewer will perceive
the work. (Lewitt 1967, p. 14)
So,
Lewitt does not ask from the recipient of conceptual art to think only “the concepts of the artist” or
even to think them at all: she is
free to think whatever. What is
important is only that “it is the
objective of the artist who is concerned with conceptual art to make his work
mentally interesting to the spectator” (Lewitt 1967, p. 12) and that
“conceptual art is made to engage the mind of the viewer rather than his eye or
emotions” (Lewitt 1967, p. 15). Pace
Costello’s understanding of the experience of conceptual art, Lewitt suggests
that this “engagement of the mind” can be achieved even if the recipient of
conceptual art does not understand “the concepts of the artists,” that is to
say, even if the recipient follows a stream of thought that is irrelevant to
the complete concept or the idea the artist has instilled in the artwork.
Finally, in an interview conducted by
Georges Boudaille, Buren emphasizes that “the observer” has the power to
“anonymize” or “neutralize” the artwork and thereby find and reflect on only
herself in the artistic experience (Boudaille 1968, p. 69). In this case, “a
fantasy would be projected, a personal view would take precedence over what is
shown” (Boudaille 1968, p. 70) – that is, the fantasy and personal view of the
recipient. In fact, when pressed by Boudaille’s relentless questioning, Buren
clarifies that this is also the conceptual artist’s aim, to wit, to give the
recipient the freedom to provide her own interpretation – whatever this is – of the artwork: “it is understood that the thing
to be viewed must signify itself without
the help of the creator, regardless of the relevance or the beauty of this
individual’s [i.e. the creator’s] personal view” (Boudaille 1968, p. 70). To
achieve this, Buren employed the technique of repetition, which can
“depersonalize [...] the thing displayed” and turn it into something “neutral,
anonymous, and [which] refers to nothing but itself” (Boudaille 1968, p. 70).
The conceptual artist, Buren insists, “[does] not want to force the spectator”
to think a particular idea (Boudaille 1968, p. 71) but only to force him “to
reflect” (period!) (Boudaille 1968, p. 69). Indeed, when Boudaille expresses a
view similar to Costello’s, namely that for conceptual art “the artist [...]
obliges the spectator to adopt his thought patterns” and that “he leads,
channels the spectator’s thoughts down the route that he wishes,” Buren
describes such behaviour as “an attack on the mind of the individual” and
complains that “it forces [the recipient] to have the same dream as [the
artist]” (Boudaille 1968, pp. 72-73). Conceptual art behaves in an altogether
different way, Buren concludes: it does not “insult” the recipient by imposing
ideas on her. It rather presents her with “something neutral” so that she can
become “free” and “choose” for herself (Boudaille 1968, pp. 74-75).
6. Two Amendments to the Kantian
Art Theory
I
end the article by suggesting that either one of two amendments to the Kantian
art theory, as presented by Costello, would enable it to accommodate all art,
including conceptual art. Note, however, that this would hold only under the
condition that the artist’s and the artwork’s “actions” are as Costello’s Kant
says they are: the artist causes the
idea in the artwork and the artwork causes
the thoughts of the recipient. There are several philosophical problems
associated with the way Costello’s Kant determines these “actions,” but the
preceding discussion has been developed under the condition that those
determinations are, in one way or another, true. We have thus been able to
illuminate the question of whether Kant’s aesthetics can accommodate conceptual
art solely from the perspective of the
recipient’s “action.” The discussion of the two amendments is meant to be
sketchy and to function as a prelude to future work on this issue. One thing
that needs to be examined but that, due to space limitations, will not be
examined here is whether these amendments are compatible with other fundamental
tenets of Kantian aesthetics. Having this caveat in mind, let us now see what
the amendments are.
(1) The first amendment is that the Kantian
art theory, instead of asking that any
given “proper” recipient has multiple playful thoughts that are kindred
with the particular conceptual or ideal content of the artwork, rather asks
that at least one recipient has
multiple thoughts in this way. With this amendment the Kantian theory can
accommodate all art. This is so because in exactly the same logical way we
posited a “really possible” recipient who has multiple thoughts that are
irrelevant to the artwork’s conceptual or ideal content, we can logically posit
for any given artwork a “really
possible” recipient who has multiple thoughts that are kindred with that artwork’s conceptual or ideal content. This
amendment changes the Kantian art theory from (a) a theory that assigns the
title “art” (or, if you will, “beautiful” or “good” or “successful art”) to an
object only if all “proper”
recipients of this object have multiple playful thoughts that are kindred with
the conceptual or ideal content of the object to (b) a theory that assigns that
title to an object even if only one
“proper” recipient of this object has multiple thoughts in this way.
(2) The second amendment is more
complicated and, therefore, more philosophically interesting than the first. It
is that the Kantian art theory, instead of describing the content of the
various artworks solely in terms of a variety of particular complete concepts
or ideas, describes it also in terms of a single general idea or concept that
encompasses all possible thoughts.[12]
In this way, it would be established that, as the Kantian theory demands, any given “proper” recipient’s multitude
of thoughts are kindred with the
artwork’s conceptual or ideal content. I suggest that this idea or concept can
be the idea of idea or the concept of concept.
Note that each artwork still contains a particular idea or concept. Delacroix’s Liberty does, under our current
assumption, have the content of the idea of freedom. Nevertheless, besides
being the idea of freedom, this idea
is also the idea of freedom: embedded
in it is the idea of idea or, if you will, its ideality. When the artist creates the artwork and thereby instills
a complete concept or an idea in it, she also
instills the most abstract idea or concept, the idea of idea or the concept of concept,
ideality or conceptuality, therein. Since all
thoughts are ideas or concepts, they are all
kindred with the artwork’s conceptual or ideal content.[13]
In this way, the Kantian art theory avoids counterexamples such as Doris’s,
Steven’s, and Michelle’s experience: it avoids the accusation that some
“proper” recipients can have a multitude of playful thoughts that are irrelevant to the artwork’s content.[14]
With this amendment, all thoughts a
“proper” recipient could have are relevant
to that content.
Schellekens is baffled by the fact that
many conceptual artists
make a point of putting all the interpretative onus on the spectator.[15]
How often are we told, after all, that a specific artwork’s meaning rests
entirely in our hands; that “it means whatever you want it to mean?”
(Schellekens 2017)
Schellekens
is baffled because she thinks that if you claim, as conceptual artists do, that
a conceptual artwork is fundamentally determined by “the idea central to the
artwork” and that such artwork causes the thoughts of the “proper” recipient,
there has to be only one appropriate interpretation of it, namely that which
captures that “central” idea (Schellekens 2017). That is to say, a state of
“indeterminacy,” as she calls it, namely a state in which recipients have
different interpretations of the work and even interpretations that assign a
meaning to the artwork that is completely different from the one the artist has
assigned to it, is foreign to the essential determination of conceptual art in
terms of its content being an idea that is transmitted to the recipient. As she
puts it,
whilst conceptual art
certainly seems to rest on something like [...] interpretative plurality [...],
it is not obvious how a kind of art that presents itself as an idea can, in
reality, accommodate such indeterminacy. (Schellekens 2017)
For
Schellekens, the view of many conceptual artists that conceptual art can
legitimately lead to experiences composed of thoughts that are all irrelevant to the particular idea the artist has instilled in the artwork generates
an irresoluble “conundrum”:
The conundrum can be put
in the following terms. If the conceptual work is the idea, it seems reasonable
to assume that artistic interpretation will consist primarily in coming to
understand that idea (which is conceded by the artist to the artwork considered
as such). In other words, if we take conceptual art’s dematerialization claim
seriously, we are left with a notion of interpretation which is relatively
constrained to the artist’s intention and to the claim that that intention
determines the appropriate or correct
interpretation for that particular work.
As we have seen, though, we are often
encouraged by conceptual artists to take the interpretative exercise into our
own hands, so to speak [...]. We are, in other words, asked to combine the idea
of art as idea with the claim that we can, as spectators, convey an entirely
new and fresh interpretation onto an artwork that is nothing but an idea which,
by definition, needs to be about or concerned with something. So, if the idea
is the art, then how can my idiosyncratic interpretation of that idea be
anywhere near valid? It seems, then, that in order to be coherent, conceptual
art must give up either the claim that the actual artwork is nothing other than
the idea, or the claim that the interpretative onus lies on the viewer. (Schellekens
2017)
In
truth, however, conceptual art does not need to give up any of these claims, for they are not incompatible. The idea the conceptual artist instills in the
conceptual artwork is composed of two
elements, its particular theme and
its general character as idea. The
conceptual artist does not demand that we think her particular idea (although
we can do so) but only that we think (period!). Thinking can be done in many
particular ways and can be about a variety of themes, so there is no one “correct”
or “valid” interpretation of a conceptual artwork. Yet, if an artwork fails to
make any recipient have a multitude
of playful thoughts about any
subject-matter, if all recipients simply admire the aesthetic attributes
of its sensible form, then it cannot be said that this artwork is really a conceptual artwork – and, according to
the Kantian art theory, as presented by Costello, it is not at all an artwork (or, if you will, a beautiful or
good or successful artwork). When Lewitt, therefore, writes that “in conceptual
art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work,” he does not
mean – as Schellekens understands him to mean – that the idea’s particular
theme (what the idea is of or about) is the conceptual artwork’s most
important aspect, but rather that the artwork’s most important aspect is the
idea’s ideality. Conceptual art is
there to make us think, not to make us think about a given particular idea. The conceptual artist Mel Bochner refers
approvingly to the following passage from James Gibson’s The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems:
The structure of an
artificial optic array may, but need not, specify a source. A wholly invented
structure need not specify anything. This would be a case of structure as such.
It contains information, but not information about, and it affords perception but not perception of. (Cited in Bochner 1967, p. 26)
Now we understand perfectly why a
conceptual artist would approve this thought. It is because the important thing
in conceptual art is the idea’s ideality or the concept’s conceptuality, not
what it is about or of. Precisely because what matters most in conceptual art
is this ideality or conceptuality, conceptual art is obliged to place the interpretative onus on the recipient. Thus, conceptual
art, pace Schellekens, does not
contradict itself when it claims both “that the actual artwork is nothing other
than the idea” and “that the interpretative onus lies on the viewer.”
In section 5 I claimed, contra Costello’s rejoinder, that one’s
holding that a “proper” recipient of a conceptual artwork can have a multitude
of thoughts that are irrelevant to
the artwork’s particular conceptual or ideal content does not lead to
conceptual art’s collapse into aesthetic formalism. I argued that this is so
because, pace Costello, the presence
of such a multitude of thoughts in
the recipient’s mind does not exclude its being affected by the idea that is present in the artwork. The
discussion in the present section has provided an explanation of the asserted compatibility of (a) the recipient’s
mind having a multitude of thoughts that are irrelevant to the artwork’s particular conceptual or ideal content
and (b) that mind’s being affected by that particular content. The explanation
is that (a) and (b) are compatible because what affects the “proper”
recipient’s mind is not only the particular theme a particular content
expresses but also the general character of that particular content as idea or
concept, namely its ideality or conceptuality. When Art & Language declared
as their mission the production of the artwork as “the ‘continuum’, the system,
the structure-as-whole,” as “a kind of generic work” (Wood 2002, p. 49), what
they had in mind was not the expansion of the “system” of a particular idea or
concept but rather the expansion of the “system” of ideality or conceptuality as
such.
It may be objected that by placing the
interpretative onus on the recipient conceptual artists make it hard to explain
why there are actually different pieces of conceptual art and why artists
choose the different objects or forms they actually choose to “embody” their
ideas or concepts. This “problem,” though, is non-existent because the
conceptual artist’s leaving the recipient absolutely free to determine her own interpretative
pathway by no means entails that the
artist should have no interest in presenting her own particular idea in the way
she deems best. The issue of the interpretative freedom of the recipient does
not affect the issue of the expression of the artist. It is impossible for the
artist to create an artwork without having a particular idea or concept in mind: the realization of (the
universal) ideality or conceptuality always requires its particularization, its
expression as a particular idea or concept. The artist is driven by the
particular idea or concept she desires to express, but this does not entail
that the artist should demand the recipient to think this particular idea or
concept. Differences in the materials used or in the form of the artwork are
perfectly explainable from the side of the conceptual artist: each conceptual
artist aims at finding the best means for the expression of their particular
idea or concept and/or for creating the most intriguing-for-thought experience
for the recipient. In neither of these cases there is an entailment of either
an absolute uniformity of artistic creation or the rejection of a stream of
irrelevant thoughts in the recipient’s mind. The objection supposes that if
conceptual artists place the interpretative onus on the recipient, they should
not worry about different means and forms of artistic expression. This
supposition is simply false for, first, artists still have a desire to express
their own particular idea or concept in the best way possible for their own satisfaction and hence
some means and forms will be better suited for their purposes than others, and,
second, some means and forms are better than others in making the recipient think (whatever she will actually think) in an expanded fashion.
7. Conclusion
I have argued that Kant’s aesthetics, as interpreted
by Costello, cannot accommodate conceptual art. The reason for this is that,
contra what Kant’s art theory, as presented by Costello, demands, a conceptual
artwork may cause some of its
“proper” recipients to have a multitude of playful thoughts that are irrelevant to the idea the artist has
instilled in that artwork. I have claimed that this does not collapse
conceptual art into aesthetic formalism because a multitude of thoughts can result from the “proper” recipient’s
mind being affected by an idea whose particular theme is irrelevant to those thoughts. I have
concluded that either one of two amendments to Kant’s art theory, as presented
by Costello, could enable Kantian aesthetics to accommodate conceptual art. The
first amendment asks for the Kantian theory to apply, not to any given
“proper” recipient of conceptual art, but only to at least one such recipient. The second amendment asks for the
Kantian art theory to determine the idea the artist instills in the artwork not
only in terms of its particular theme but also in terms of its general
character, its ideality. This second amendment clarifies that the reason
conceptual art does not collapse into aesthetic formalism even if the “proper”
recipient’s mind generates a multitude of thoughts that are irrelevant to the
idea the artist has instilled in the conceptual artwork is because the “proper”
recipient’s mind is affected by the sheer
ideality of that idea. In this way the causality between the artwork and
the recipient is maintained. Conceptual art aims at making us think (period!),
not at making us think about what the artist thought when she created the
artwork. Whether these two amendments are compatible with other basic tenets of
Kant’s aesthetics is a puzzle for future work.[16]
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