A Short Art History Analysis of Theory Art’s Lineage, Including From Some Western Thought and Philosophic Thought Systems, Including the Scientific Method
A Brief Art History Analysis of Theory Art’s Lineage From Conceptual Art, Post Conceptual Art, Neoconceptual Art, Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, and, Along the Way, Some Western Thought Systems, Some Global Philosophies, and The Scientific Method.
Introduction: The Broader Context of Art History Worldwide
If Art may be considered to be an ever-evolving dialogue between artist-creators and viewers-listeners-readers-receivers across cultures, ideas, and periods of human development — a dialogue pushing boundaries and redefining creativity as humanity evolves, or at least moves forward in time — then Theory art, a derivative of Conceptual Art, or perhaps its younger sibling, gives the historic artistic dialogue a new way for using classic mediums — paint, music, writing — for exploring the meaning of singular concepts — one idea at a time — but rather more comprehensively exploring the meaning of interrelated ideas.
If all of this is true to some degree, or even most of it, then Theory Art seems to present a new paradigm, not as to mediums or executions or voice, but as to what an artist-creator can convey, and what a viewer-listener-reader-receiver can interpret. Because theories, it turns out are the one thing left that only humans (so far as we know so far) can do. Other species can make musical art, and visual art; only humans can make theories. Until, of course, the advent of artificial intelligence, AI. Now something else can make theories, not just humans.
This more broadly raises questions of what is human, and what is not; these deeper questions are for another time; what this short essay is about is the potential utility of Theory Art as a way of making theory as art using the remaining human elements — consciousness, soul, intuition, creative inspiration — that, so far the other theory-maker, artificial intelligence, cannot.
With the above as foreshadowing as to this and related articles, this particular essay attempts a brief examination of Theory Art through the broad lens of a survey of art history ranging from the American and European, to the Greek, Middle Eastern, and ancient Roman, to Chinese and Japanese, to the African, to the Central and South American, to the Native American, and to Indigenous art histories as well. This article will also explore how Theory Art fits within Western thought systems, including particularly as manifested in the arts — visual, musical, literary, poetic, and even architecture — in particular postmodernism, postconceptualism, postminimalism, minimalism, neoconceptual art, and what appears to be the clearest thing from which Theory Art can trace its lineage — Conceptual Art of the past 100 years.
Theory Art, or call it Theoryconceptual Art: Conceptual Art Roots; Western Philosophical Foundations
The intellectual origins of theory art are most recently and most directly seen in the conceptual art movement, which, at least in the West, emerged prominently in the 1960s in parts of Europe and, in the United States, New York city and Los Angeles.
As brief background, ‘conceptual’ artists such as Joseph Kosuth articulated that the idea itself constitutes the artwork, and matters more than its visual or aesthetic elements, famously asserting “Art as idea as idea” (Kosuth, 1969). If considered in the context of Western intellectual history, Kosuth’s view and conceptual art more generally can be seen to follow aspects of Immanuel Kant’s philosophical framework that proposed a utility in distinguishing the noumenal (realm of ideas) from the phenomenal (realm of objects), such as he most clearly outlined in “Critique of Pure Reason” (Kant, 1781).
In this respect, Theory Art derives from, builds upon, and launches from some of the thinkings of Kant and the conceptual artists like Kosuth, and here’s how it builds and is different: Theory art seems to have as its distinguishing element a focus on the relationship of multiple ideas as they connect to and relate to each other: Documentations, depictions, and proposals not just of an idea singular, but of potential ways to see and processes this legacy, delving into the synthesis of multiple ideas and their theoretical interconnections, much like Hegel’s dialectical process described in his works.
Theory Art As Recording and Preserving What Are Not Just Theories, But Human Theories: A Global Historical Perspective.
It seems that we humans claim that we are unique and exceptional as to many things, as compared to other species. Taking that as the asserted claim, the one area in which that may be true (so far as we know so far, perhaps based on our unwillingness to discover otherwise) is that we are the only species that can create theories — syntheses of proposals of how multiple ideas and facts connect and relate — ways of understanding, ways of proposing, ways of documenting how it all comes together or falls apart (Chinua Achebe, Nigerian Novelist and Poet, Things Fall Apart, 1958).
Throughout human history, very broadly speaking, “art,” and included within “art” storytelling, and oral traditions, and myths, has often served as a conduit for complex ideas and philosophical inquiries. Ancient Greek art including its classical mythology frequently intertwined the visual, musical, and poetic with philosophical thought, most obviously seen in (and still thankfully taught in most places in) the works of Plato and Aristotle, who implicitly if not expressly, viewed art as a means to convey philosophical truths. So too, but a little differently, in ancient Rome, where art was in some ways utilitarian, tool for political and intellectual expression — perhaps more points to make than ideas to propose. It’s just one interpretation or attempt to make the briefest of theories about how they compare and contrast. And that’s just that one area of the world at one time in history.
Compare aspects of the Middle Eastern tradition — it’s oversimplistic to analyze something with such breadth, both geographically and culturally, as one single thing, but, in a sentence, Islamic art and its calligraphy may be seen as conveying and recording not just an idea, singular, but rather the synthesizing the theories that are the intellectual foundations of Islamic philosophy and religion, including how the intellectual foundations of countries and cultures in the Middle East are so closely interconnected with, and in some ways one with, or even inseparable from, the religious theories from which the intellectual came.
And compare Chinese and Japanese art, from the landscapes of Shen Zhou to the ukiyo-e prints of Hokusai; these too have embodied philosophical reflections and theories on nature, balance, and harmony. Are they art about an idea — and more like conceptual art — or are they art about how things relate — more like theory art? Not just up for debate; up for new theories; and the artist practicing theory art — no matter the medium of visual, musical, literary, or poetic — would perhaps suggest that its these theories, including about what art is about, is what theory art is all about.
And compare Africa, and the Americas that are beyond the United States: In Africa (another “place,” singular, that is far too broad and diverse to be seen as one place, or one tradition, but which for oversimplicity of a brief article must unfortunately be combined), art has long been interwoven with social, spiritual, and philosophical systems, including storytelling and the spoken tradition — perhaps one of the ultimate ways theory art can exist, as it is arguably theory by narrative and theory by metaphor and allegory. Yoruba and Dogon sculptures and masks are arguably not just about a single idea or point; they are most often interpreted as being proposals about relationships, and depictions and recordings of theories, even if not expressly so named. So to art of Native American cultures and the global cultures of various Indigenous peoples; much of their art can be interpreted not just as the singular, and not just of the individual or discrete, but rather as art, myth, narratives, stories, and other mediums that record, convey, communicate, and develop not only theories of religion, but of ecology, integration, sustainability, harmony, and philosophies of a nature, and about nature, in ways that Western thinking systems and Western theories clearly do not understand, or at least continue to fail to appreciate and properly apply.
Does this bring us back to the very recent and very narrow art history of Western thinking and its very, very recent (just the past century) Postmodernism, Postconceptualism, Postminimalism, Minimalist, Neoconceptual, and Conceptual Art? Theory art seems to be descendant from all of this too. Minimalist artists like Donald Judd emphasized the essence of overall form — theories of relationships of form? — while conceptual and neoconceptual artists such as Jenny Holzer also the essence of overall form — theories of relationships of lines and lines of text without visual, her Truisms. For now, the most direct lineage might be this: Like Conceptual Art, Theory Art seems to be of the objective — theories about what is out there, not the artist’s personal experiences — art about what is in there. I suppose there could be theory art where an artist sets forth theories to explain how all their experiences relate, but that does not seem to be theory art, unless the artist is proposing a theory to explain such a thing at the level of an entire culture or species. (Adam Daley Wilson, United States, Species Narcissistica, 2018). It is this objective nature — the documenting, the asking, the noticing, the connecting, the “relationing” of Theory Art, it’s focus on hypothesizing, its inductive and deductive reasoning, its inferring, its proposing — it is these objective elements of Theory Art that seem to additionally set it apart from, and yet still in lineage from Conceptual art. This seems important enough a point to be discussed more, below.
The Objective Nature of Theory Art: The Connection And Relation Of Things, Even Other Theories, In Ways Outside Of The Individual And The Personal Subjective Self.
As discussed briefly above, one of the ways that Theory Art seems to set itself apart from certain traditions of art, and seems to align itself with, and follow from, other traditions of art, is by being understood as falling within the objective side of the objective-subjective distinction. Theory Art seems to most often focus on the exploration of objective theories over subjective personal narratives and subjective personal events. While it may be either inductive or deductive in reasoning, it seems to want to find or propose theories that are broadly applicable to the all, or the most, rather than to the individual world that each of us subjectively lives in our own private minds and hearts.
No, it’s not scientific at all, but see it like that for a moment: This Theory Art approach aligns most closely, if it has to be compared, with the scientific method’s emphasis on observation objectivity and universal truths. Consider just for a moment: Theory Art, like the scientific method, can — in painting, music, sound, lyric, narrative, writing, word, novel, poem — do what the scientific method does, which, briefly, is this: The scientific method may be seen as a universal, cross-cultural, cross-knowledge-system, logic-based process used to investigate observable phenomena and acquire new knowledge about how they connect and relate.
So too Theory Art as being about art that sees and proposes and documents how things might connect and relate: Like the scientific method, it begins with making an observation, which involves noticing and describing a phenomenon or group of phenomena. This is followed by formulating a hypothesis — a theory — which may be seen as a tentative theoretical explanation or prediction that can be tested, about how, why, and usually how it might relate to knowledge already known, or at least fit within it, or at least be consistent with it. Next, experiments are designed and conducted to test the hypothesis, involving the manipulation of variables and the collection of data. (No doubt, some practices and executions of Art Theory would not seem to do this, at least not well, but one can imagine installations or other data-driven art pieces that could do this.) After experimentation, that information is analyzed to determine whether it supports or refutes the hypothesis-theory. Based on the analysis, a theory-conclusion is drawn, which either confirms the hypothesis, leads to its modification, or necessitates a new hypothesis. As Theory Art might say, theory about theory about theory. As Kosuth might say, Art about theories about theories. Finally, for the scientific method, the results are communicated to the scientific community through publications, presentations, or discussions, allowing others to replicate the study and build upon the findings. This iterative process ensures the reliability and validity of scientific knowledge. Art theory might do it a bit differently but isn’t it the same when future artists across disciplines see prior art, or many prior pieces, and see a new possible synthesis, reflected in the iterative process of art referencing prior art, of art movements responding to prior movements? Isn’t this how modern art went from modern to post-modern, conceptual to post-conceptual, minimalism to post-minimalism, and so on? The clearest example, again, seems to be Conceptual Art. From (1) Conceptual Art to (2) Postconceptual Art to (3) Neoconceptual Art to (4) Theory Art. Maybe call it Theoryconceptual Art.
All by way of saying, there seems to be something grounded in the objective, rather than the subjective, in Theory Art. It seems to be out there looking around, not inside looking in about oneself.
At its broadest, beyond the cross-cultural logic-based scientific method, above, which is in no way dependent on any one culture’s particular beliefs or history, this objective focus that we are discussing finds reference in several philosophical traditions seen in certain ways worldwide. The Zen Buddhist concept of “mu” (nothingness) seeks to transcend individual ego, attaining a deeper universal insight that is in more objective than subjective. The African philosophy of Ubuntu emphasizes interconnectedness and collective existence (which in some ways also is seen in certain Chinese and Japanese traditions), which too seems to fall on the side of the objective, not the personally subjective. The existence of these philosophies, and their global resonance, particularly Buddhism, reinforce the notion that there is something substantive and perhaps noteworthy about Theory Art’s apparent focus on transcending the artist’s personal experience, rather instead focusing on the engagement with broader sets of observations, ideas, facts, occurrences, and, to the extent the self is explored at all, it is the collective self of Ubuntu philosophy, and similar philosophies, at the collective, societal, cultural, or the species level — — theories about the species from theories about the commonalities in the individual. (Adam Daley Wilson, United States, Species Anosognosia, 2018) (oils stick on canvas, 8 feet x 5 feet, proposing two theories at once, that western psychiatric mental illness diagnoses applied to the individual should also be applied to the species as a whole; and that the human species knows what it is doing, and yet still does it, and thereby does not have anosognosia, the psychiatric term for a person who is so sick they cannot see it.)
Conclusion And Next Articles: Is There a Relationship Between Art Theory And Theories by Humans, As Distinct From Theories by Artificial Intelligence?
The above is a further attempt to see what Art Theory is, and is not — if it is a thing at all. One theory about all of it, whether expressed as art or as words (which might themselves be art) is this: If Art Theory is about theories, do theories made by artificial intelligence get to be Theory Art? Or is there something unique about human theories, as opposed to machine theories, that is substantively or aesthetically relevant to conceptions of Theory Art? Will humans see the concept of Theory Art as a way to preserve, protect, and keep something uniquely human, now that there is AI? Query whether Theory Art will become one in the same with Human Art. (Adam Daley Wilson, United States, 2023, Theory Art With More Than Thought Is Unique To Us It’s Human Art, oil on canvas.)
