Art & Language International: Conceptual Art between Art Worlds
Foxes and Hedgehogs
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Published:June 2016
This chapter examines a publication called The Fox, which brought Art & Language’s work to its widest readership but is often dismissed by critics and historians as politically naive. The chapter argues that The Fox is deeply rooted in the collective’s practical activist experience, which appears only tangentially in its pages but substantively informs its outlook. Reconstructing the history of Art & Language’s associations with various political organizations both within the art world and outside it, the chapter examines issues including feminism, black nationalism, and proletarianization. The collective’s “intranational” work appears as an instance of Art & Language’s conceptual focus generating new modes of artistic sociality within a single nation: the United States. However, the difficulties of maintaining conceptual rigor and political efficacy soon became apparent, and the chapter concludes with a consideration of the collective’s breakdown amid an attempt to establish membership criteria.
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