Matthew Landis

'Corpaphysics, Conceptualism, and dualism

Larry Eigner, left, in 1984, photo by Alistair Johnston; Bernadette Mayer and CAConrad, right, photo © Lawrence Schwartzwald.

Is this mental/intellectual/psychological focus within Conceptualism ableist? At the very least it seems to be one-dimensional: the body marks a caesura, and it is a product of Conceptualism’s relationship with the body and its positioning of itself in relation to it. There’s so much of a focus on the idea, on how the work strikes the mind — it’s rife with duality. Indeed, Conceptualist scion Sol LeWitt’s “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” can be surprisingly Cartesian at times.

Syndicate content