Defining text-based artwork is trickier than it appears. Sure, it’s artwork with textual content, however… Are pictures optionally available, required, or verboten? Should the textual content be language or will arrays of aesthetically positioned however linguistically random letters depend? Can promoting (e.g., Milton Glaser) or spiritual artwork (e.g., Islamic calligraphy) be thought of text-based artwork?
Is there a single definition of textual content artwork? Can there be? Ought to there be?
For the sake of this temporary information, we are going to restrict ourselves to Twentieth and twenty first century artists, primarily ones working in English, since that’s greater than sufficient to get acquainted with the subject. We will even use the next working definition to slim our scope:
Textual content-based artwork is an artwork kind the place language components play a pivotal function within the composition. It may be purely linguistic or mixed with pictures or bodily objects. It artwork engages viewers by stimulating their minds and hearts, encouraging them to discover new interpretations and emotional responses to the work. By mixing visible, bodily, literary, and poetic components, textual content artwork creates a wealthy, interdisciplinary expertise that broadens the scope of conventional artwork kinds.
There are many fascinating and pleasant near-cousins to text-based artwork that you would be able to comply with this with, together with concrete poetry, visible poetry, a lot of the Fluxus output, and conceptual writing. These, alas, are for one more day.
René Magritte
René Magritte’s well-known portray, The Treachery of Pictures, is without doubt one of the earliest and most well-known examples of artwork leaning towards being text-based. Georges Braque likewise included textual content into his work with newspaper clipping and different printed supplies.
Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly, in his frenetic sketchings, maybe made the most important strides towards a text-based artwork with works like Apollo (under), which performed with textual content in a approach that may be taken to an extra excessive half a century later by Jean-Michel Basquiat.
However it wasn’t till the Sixties, with the arrival of a number of key figures on the American artwork scene, that text-based artwork got here into its personal.
Ed Ruscha
Artist Ed Ruscha moved to California from Oklahoma to review artwork (beneath Robert Irwin, no much less), and after graduating took a job in 1961 as a format artist for the Carson-Roberts promoting company in Los Angeles, the place he realized lettering, promoting, and design. These twin educations laid the muse for what can be an extended custom of text-based artists seizing the means of promoting.
One of many earliest examples of Ruscha’s newfound lettering expertise put to make use of in artwork is Honk (1962).
Andy Warhol
The identical yr, on the opposite facet of the US, Andy Warhol stole extra liberally from the industrial world when he exhibited his notorious Campbell’s Soup Cans.
When requested about his alternative to color Campbell’s soup cans, Warhol replied, “I used to have the identical lunch every single day, for twenty years, I assume, the identical factor time and again.” This day by day routine impressed a sequence of thirty-two canvases, every representing a special taste obtainable from Campbell’s at the moment. Warhol employed methods reminiscent of projection, tracing, portray, and stamping to create these works. By repeating the almost equivalent picture throughout all canvases, he highlighted the consistency and omnipresence of the product’s packaging, whereas additionally difficult the normal notion of portray as a medium for innovation and originality.
Roy Lichtenstein
The place Ruscha cribbed from promoting and Warhol from branding, one of many earliest items of pop artwork, Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam! (1963), drew inspiration from comedian books, primarily from a panel illustrated by Irv Novick in a 1962 warfare comedian. Lichtenstein reimagined the supply materials by presenting it as a diptych and altering the interaction between the graphical and narrative elements.
Following the above examples, Andy Warhol launched Brillo Packing containers (1964), main distinguished artwork critic Arthur Danto to declare the top of artwork.
Joseph Kosuth
As Fluxus and conceptualism grew more and more influential, particularly within the New York scene, artists started to decouple the thought and the paintings. To maybe oversimplify, the considering was: If artwork is there to convey an concept, why not skip the artwork and simply immediately supply the thought?
Sol LeWitt was one of many earliest artists to take this to its logical excessive by promoting as artwork directions for making the artwork. Different artists — lots of them pals of LeWitt — went much more direct, reminiscent of Joseph Kosuth’s Titled (Artwork as Thought as Thought) The Phrase “Definition” (1966-68).
Kosuth said that “artwork is making that means,” and his work explores the connection between art-making and language. This piece belongs to a sequence that makes use of definitions taken from dictionary entries of phrases reminiscent of “artwork,” “chair,” “that means,” and, on this self-referential case, “definition.” For Kosuth, the precise paintings is the definition itself, however he requires that the unique dictionary clipping be photographically enlarged to particular dimensions for show.
John Baldessari
John Baldessari started his creative profession within the Nineteen Fifties as a painter however discovered his true calling within the Sixties with conceptual artwork. The burgeoning style gave him room to discover new concepts and mediums, together with images, movie, and text-based artwork.
In 1966, Baldessari created Ideas for Artists Who Wish to Promote, a sequence of 14 prints that sardonically handle the industrial features of artwork. The prints vary from sensible recommendation, like “Portray with out pricing shall be onerous to promote,” to absurd statements reminiscent of “A child one yr previous is a promoting level at all times.” These pointers, although whimsical, mirror the varied aspects of an artist’s expertise within the industrial artwork world.
Baldessari’s humor highlights how even artwork, which goals to embody excessive beliefs, is topic to commercialization and consumerism. Regardless of its playful tone, the sequence provides deep insights into the commodification of creativity, urging viewers to confront the fact that artists, like all professionals, should navigate the dynamics of provide and demand.
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner’s ONE QUART EXTERIOR GREEN INDUSTRIAL ENAMEL THROWN ON A BRICK WALL (1968) written in inexperienced on a wall, is one in all Weiner’s early text-based installations, a format he adopted predominantly from 1968 onwards. A lot of his subsequent works, together with this piece, reference particular supplies or bodily actions. By detailing the method behind the paintings, Weiner demystifies the idea of ‘artwork’ and ‘artists,’ suggesting that anybody might recreate this piece or produce one thing related. This method was a part of his effort to democratize fashionable artwork.
Weiner later described his transition to utilizing phrases as a kind as “a political choice.” He defined that to create one thing universally accessible, he wanted to imbue it with real sculptural values and current it in a language that allowed individuals to copy it themselves. These weren’t directions, however standalone items. Based on his 1968 Declaration of Intent, these text-based works don’t require the artist’s private execution. Weiner views his text-based works as sculptural, itemizing the supplies as “language + supplies referred to.”
Robert Indiana
Extra actually sculptural is Robert Indiana’s most well-known work, LOVE (1970), which grew to become a right away international icon.
Whereas it’s straightforward to imagine LOVE was impressed by romance or a fellow feeling, it was really influenced by his spiritual upbringing within the Church of Christ, Scientist. The design began as a Christmas card to pals and grew from the phrase “God is Love” from his childhood church. Indiana later got here to resent the success of this piece, which was way more profitable than his wildest ambitions and got here to mark him as one thing of a “one-hit surprise,” even when he’d by no means hoped for fairly such a success to start out with.
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer’s Truisms (1977–1979) are amongst her most acknowledged works, comprising almost 300 aphorisms and slogans that make the most of fashionable clichés or broadly accepted truths.
In 1977, whereas learning literature and philosophy in New York Metropolis, Holzer started utilizing phrases and language as standalone artwork mediums. She simplified complicated concepts from her readings into temporary, punchy statements and posted them round Manhattan. In contrast to contemporaries who mixed textual content with imagery, Holzer handled textual content as the first visible factor, valuing the immediacy and broad attain of signage.
Holzer wrote her personal aphorisms, believing unconventional messages can be extra memorable. She stored her statements temporary to seize consideration shortly, aiming for them to impress thought, elicit laughter, and immediate reflection.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s A Panel of Consultants (1982) showcases his signature fashion of aggressive brushstrokes and fragmented anatomy, integrating textual content and poetry in a posh visible language.
The piece was impressed by an altercation between his lovers Suzanne Mallouk and Madonna. Outstanding on the highest left is the phrase “VENUS” (his nickname for Mallouk with “MADONNA©” crossed out beneath it. This crossing out of Madonna’s identify attracts consideration to it, a method Basquiat defined as a solution to make obscured phrases extra noticeable. The copyright image subsequent to Madonna’s identify hints at her future stardom. The central scene humorously depicts the battle between Mallouk and Madonna as stick figures, reflecting Basquiat’s playful narrative fashion.
Basquiat’s childhood aspiration to be a cartoonist is obvious within the portray’s comedian guide components. Beneath the depiction of the battle, a superman-like determine is proven with the phrase “KRAK,” paying homage to comedian guide sound results. The portray additionally contains references to Saturday morning cartoons, with phrases like “SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON,” “SUGAR COATED CORN PUFFS,” “MILK,” and “SUGAR” scattered throughout the canvas.
Bruce Naumann
Bruce Nauman is an artist identified for his work throughout numerous media, together with sculpture, images, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and efficiency. His 1984 neon paintings One Hundred Reside & Die consists of 4 columns with 100 phrases every, associated to themes of life, loss of life, feelings, and human actions. Every phrase within the paintings is made up of three phrases and ends with both “stay” or “die,” reminiscent of “giggle and stay” and “giggle and die.” The phrases mild up in a particular sequence, creating a visible show that highlights Nauman’s curiosity in language and colour.
The paintings contains thematic pairs like “love” and “hate” or “black” and “white,” in addition to singular phrases like “concern,” “kill,” “assume,” and “pay,” which wouldn’t have direct opposites. This mixture of repeated and distinctive phrases gives a transparent illustration of human experiences, reflecting Nauman’s method to combining wordplay with visible components.
Christopher Wool
Christopher Wool’s phrase work emerged within the late ‘80s utilizing pre-existing kinds like blocky stencils. His fascination with how phrases change in kind and performance when built-in into the cityscape is exemplified by his replication of “SEX LUV” from a spray-painted supply truck in a 1987 work on paper.
Apocalypse Now (1988), maybe Wool’s most well-known phrase portray, options the phrases “SELL THE HOUSE SELL THE CAR SELL THE KIDS” stenciled in black, block letters utilizing alkyd enamel on an off-white aluminum and metal plate. The phrase is a quote from the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now, written in a letter by a personality who’s gone insane within the jungle. Additional emphasizing a kind of manic panic, the disjointed phrases and lack of punctuation stall instant comprehension, not not like Wendy’s sluggish decoding of the phrase REDRUM as MURDER in The Shining.
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger is famend for her artwork that critiques media and politics utilizing the language of tabloid sensationalism and direct authority. Her works mix the industrial and artwork worlds, successfully dismantling cultural hierarchies by suggesting that everybody and every part is commodified.
In 1989, amid protests in opposition to new anti-abortion legal guidelines that threatened to undermine the 1973 Roe v. Wade choice, Kruger created Untitled (Your physique is a battleground) for the Ladies’s March on Washington. This piece, that includes a lady’s face break up into constructive and adverse exposures and overlaid with textual content, serves as each artwork and protest highlighting the persistent division and debate over girls’s autonomy.
Glenn Ligon
American conceptual artist Glenn Ligon is thought for his exploration of themes reminiscent of race, language, want, sexuality, and id. Primarily based in New York Metropolis, Ligon’s work regularly references Twentieth-century literature and cultural figures, drawing on the phrases of James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, Jean Genet, and Richard Pryor.
Ligon’s 1993 sequence The Runaways contains ten lithographs impressed by Nineteenth-century commercials positioned by slave homeowners searching for escaped slaves. For this sequence, Ligon requested pals to jot down descriptions of him as in the event that they had been reporting a lacking particular person to the police. He then rendered these descriptions in typography that mimicked the unique adverts, pairing them with illustrations from interval newspapers and anti-slavery pamphlets.
The unsettling similarity between his pals’ descriptions and the historic slave adverts highlights the enduring influence of racial profiling and the legacy of slavery in modern society. By positioning himself as the topic of those modern-day “runaway” adverts, Ligon creates a strong commentary on id, historic context, and the dehumanizing results of systemic racism.
Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin’s Hate and Energy Could be a Horrible Factor (2004) exemplifies the artist’s radical method to textual content artwork via the medium of stitched quilts. On this work, Emin juxtaposes highly effective and provocative statements like “I hate girls such as you” and “You haven’t any concept of religion” with the historically home exercise of quilting, making a stark distinction that emphasizes the intimate and confessional nature of her phrases. The inclusion of spelling errors provides to the crude, handmade high quality, additional underlining the private and diaristic tone of the piece. Emin makes use of an previous pink blanket, floral materials, a dirty flag, and felt lettering, all roughly stitched collectively, reworking an emblem of home consolation right into a automobile for enraged self-expression and political condemnation.
The paintings explicitly references the Falklands Battle and Margaret Thatcher, with phrases like “ROT IN HELL” and “YOU CRUEL HEARTLESS BITCH,” making Emin’s denunciation of Thatcher and the warfare unmistakable. The British ensign and the phrases “PERMISSION TO FIRE” underscore this critique, whereas the appliquéd flowers and cross add layers of symbolism.
Kay Rosen
The work of Kay Rosen splits the distinction between visible pun and linguistic pun to speak messages extra succinctly than might’ve in any other case been dreamt potential. For over 50 years, Rosen has explored the probabilities of phrases as pictures, delighting in small shifts and refined adjustments that subvert that means and reveal the sudden. Her various physique of labor—together with work, drawings, wall works, collages, and editions—employs various visible, grammatical, and typographical methods to problem how individuals understand and perceive phrases. Rosen’s use of colour articulates her concepts in methods which can be usually humorous, generally surprising, and regularly profound.
Rosen’s work has been described as sculpture, poetry, structure, and efficiency, incomes her accolades reminiscent of being referred to as a “author’s sculptor” by Roberta Smith of the New York Occasions and the “poet of the artwork world” by Eileen Myles.
Erica Baum
Erica Baum, an American photographer primarily based in New York Metropolis, is well known for her modern use of printed paper and language in her work. In her Canine Ear sequence (2009–2010), Baum images dog-eared pages of mass-market paperbacks, capturing the small diagonally bisected squares or rectangles of textual content created by turning down a web page nook. This straightforward but evocative idea transforms the act of marking one’s place into a mirrored image on collective historic reminiscence, with the ensuing pictures creating readymade poetry that may be interpreted in a number of methods.
The images, formally impartial and paying homage to Josef Albers’ Homage to the Sq., draw viewers in with their refined interaction of verbal and visible indicators, prompting questions on whether or not to view them as creative images, documentation, or textual content artwork. By this mix of likelihood and intention, Baum’s work challenges and engages the viewer on a number of ranges.
Conclusion
Regardless of the ridiculous size of this text, we’ve to date barely scratched the floor of text-based artwork and its many practitioners. We’ll doubtless write a followup highlighting lots of the nice textual content artists who’ve debuted upon the artwork scene within the twenty first century, together with these occupying web3, however for now, take into account this half one.
