This Is Theory Art — a Brief Introduction in Relation to Conceptual, Post-conceptual, Post-minimalist, Postmodern, and Text-Based Art
What is Theory Art? If Conceptual Art is about an idea, Theory Art is about how it all relates. Theory Art says art isn’t just what an artist does. It’s also what an artist thinks. No matter how or where expressed. Maybe even if it’s not expressed at all.
Theory Art is practiced not just in visual art but also in music, literature, poetry, and performance. It most recently arises from the past century or so of major worldwide artistic movements, philosophies, and methods of communicating and thinking. A Theory Art practice attempts to express and evaluate human theories, existing and coming, past and predicted, through blends of substantive language, asemic writing, degrees of visual abstraction, and performative, musical, literary, or other documentary or advocacy acts as vehicles to convey and consider, protect and critique, humanity’s theories in ways not possible through language and logic alone.
Theory Art’s lineage can be traced to Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction theories, Rosalind Krauss’s interpretation theories, and Roland Barthes’s semiotic language theories, as well as academic disciplines from linguistics to logic to law. From all of these, Theory Art references and explores human thinking; non-human thinking; relationships between languages and meaning; relationships between the artist and the viewer-listener-reader; who, what, how, why, and when meaning is made and lost; and more. What is fundamental to the practice of theory art is this: Whatever is explored, it’s the use of art — in any form — to document theories, on the idea that art may evolve to be one of the essential ways that humans can share human theories with each other in a world where non-human thinking predominates.
In the broader context of visual, musical, and literary art history, Art Theory’s lineage can be traced to elements of postmodernism, postconceptualism, and postminimalism. In the more narrow context of visual art and performance art, Art Theory’s lineage can also be traced to art forms such as text-based art, which has been universal across cultures and times for thousands of years of humanity on every continent. More recently, it can also be traced to (1) asemic writing, explored by artists like Henri Michaux and Cy Twombly, and its language-like marks that are devoid of semantic content; (2) gestural painting, explored by artists like Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, which emphasizes the physical act of creation; (3) performance art and happenings, explored by artists like Marina Abramović and Allan Kaprow; (4) minimalism’s focus on form, explored by artists like Donald Judd and Agnes Martin, and (5) conceptual text-based painting, explored by artists like Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner, and Jenny Holzer.
Centuries of artists worldwide — visual, musical, literary, poetic, and performative — have laid the the groundwork for theory art. Marcel Duchamp’s readymades and his questioning of what constitutes art challenged viewers to reconsider the very nature of art and its interpretation; both are core explorations in the practice of theory art. John Cage’s experimental musical compositions highlight the role of the audience in creating meaning, paralleling theory art’s explorations of Rosalind Krauss, Derrida, and interpretation. Jenny Holzer’s text installations — no “art,” just words — directly inform theory art’s use of pure language, as language, with no visual, as constituting art, including but not needing an element of performance art.
Depending on how practiced, theory art may fit traditional views of art (visual, musical, or literary), or it may appear as plain words in societal settings (words filed in our public courts), or both. It can look like a painting or it can look like a document. With its ultimate lineage in conceptual art, where it is the idea, not the execution, the practice of theory art may be seen as a potential way that art can document, evaluate, preserve, and propose human theories, for humans, thereby protecting the human element in world thinking going forward, while at the same time also providing a way to consider and critique our human theories so far, and the ones that may come next.
This has been just a very brief intro to Theory Art; stay tuned for a more developed theory of Theory art.
— Adam Daley Wilson Artist
