Art & Language is a collective of British artists initially formed in 1968 by Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, Harold Hurrell and David Bainbridge. It grew to have more than fifty members, including Ian Burn and Joseph Kosuth, but their diversity led them to drift apart and by 1977 only Michael Baldwin (b. Chipping Norton, UK, 1945), Mel Ramsden (b. Ilkeston, UK, 1944) and Charles Towsend Harrison (b. Chesham, UK, 1942-2009) remained. Art & Language played a vital role in the more analytical aspects of conceptual art. By prioritising the idea and the discursive capacity of art, and influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Marx and Thomas Kuhn, the collective built up a critical, subversive body of work based on language. A wide variety of media was used to deconstruct traditional notions of art and of the art object. In the late 1970s its members took up painting again as a medium for revealing the paradoxes of modern art. From then on they focused particularly on the myths of Modernism and Impressionism.
Their first solo exhibition took place in 1968, and was followed by further major conceptual art shows such as ‘Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects’, at the New York Cultural Center (New York, 1970), ‘Information’ at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1970) and ‘Idea Structures’ at the Camden Arts Centre (London, 1970). They also exhibited at international events such as Documenta 5, 7 and 10 (Kassel, Germany, 1972, 1982 and 1997) and the Venice Biennial (1976 and 2003). The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art staged a retrospective of their work in 2014.
Art & Language is a collective of British artists initially formed in 1968 by Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, Harold Hurrell and David Bainbridge. It grew to have more than fifty members, including Ian Burn and Joseph Kosuth, but their diversity led them to drift apart and by 1977 only Michael Baldwin (b. Chipping Norton, UK, 1945), Mel Ramsden (b. Ilkeston, UK, 1944) and Charles Towsend Harrison (b. Chesham, UK, 1942-2009) remained. Art & Language played a vital role in the more analytical aspects of conceptual art. By prioritising the idea and the discursive capacity of art, and influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Marx and Thomas Kuhn, the collective built up a critical, subversive body of work based on language. A wide variety of media was used to deconstruct traditional notions of art and of the art object. In the late 1970s its members took up painting again as a medium for revealing the paradoxes of modern art. From then on they focused particularly on the myths of Modernism and Impressionism.
Their first solo exhibition took place in 1968, and was followed by further major conceptual art shows such as ‘Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects’, at the New York Cultural Center (New York, 1970), ‘Information’ at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1970) and ‘Idea Structures’ at the Camden Arts Centre (London, 1970). They also exhibited at international events such as Documenta 5, 7 and 10 (Kassel, Germany, 1972, 1982 and 1997) and the Venice Biennial (1976 and 2003). The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art staged a retrospective of their work in 2014.