Art & Language

Art & Language is an English conceptual artists' collaboration created around 1967. The name Art & Language is derived from the journal Art-Language (first published in Coventry in May 1969), which had its origins in the work of Terry Atkinson and Michael Baldwin (from 1966) in association with Harold Hurrell and David Bainbridge. These were its original editors. Art & Language was used subsequently to identify the joint and several artistic works of these four in an effort to reflect the conversational basis of their activity, which, by late 1969, had already included contributions from New York by Joseph Kosuth, Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden. By late 1976 the genealogical thread of this artistic work had been taken into the hands of Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden, with whom it remains.

The facts of who did what, how much they contributed and so on are more or less well known. The (small) degree of anonymity that the name originally conferred continues, however, to be of historical significance.

The first issue of Art-Language (Volume 1, Number 1, May 1969) is subtitled The Journal of Conceptual Art. By the second issue (Volume 1, Number 2, February 1970), it had become clear that the journal did not speak to or for some Conceptual Art and some Conceptual artists. The inscription was accordingly abandoned. Art-Language had, however, laid claim to a purpose and to a constituency. It was the first imprint to identify a public entity called ‘Conceptual Art’ and the first to serve the theoretical and conversational interests of a community of artists and critics who were its producers and users.

As the distribution of the journal and the teaching practice of the editors and others developed, the conversation expanded and multiplied to include by 1971 (in England) Charles Harrison, Philip Pilkington, David Rushton, Lynn Lemaster, Sandra Harrison, Graham Howard and Paul Wood, and (in New York) Michael Corris, and later Paula Ramsden, Terry Smith, Mayo Thompson, Christine Kozlov, Preston Heller, Andrew Menard and Kathryn Bigelow.

Decisive action had become necessary if any vestige of Art & Language’s original ethos was to remain. There were those who saw themselves excluded from this who departed for individual occupations in teaching or as artists. There were others immune to the troubles who simply found different work. Terry Atkinson had left in 1974. There were yet others whose departure was expedited by those whose practice had continued (and continues) to be identified with the journal Art-Language and

its artistic commitments. While musical activities continued (and continue) with Mayo Thompson, and the literary conversational project continued with Charles Harrison (died 2008), by late 1976 the genealogical thread of this artistic work had been taken into the hands of Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden, with whom it remains.

In 1986, Art & Language was nominated for the Turner Prize. A catalogue raisonné will be published in the fall of 2025.