Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth is a pioneer of Conceptualism whose work untethers art from the strictly visual to draw attention to its theoretical framework. As he wrote in his influential treatise “Art After Philosophy” (1969), “A work of art is a kind of proposition presented within the context of art as a comment on art.” Five Words in Green Neon predates this declaration but elegantly illustrates its idea. Like much of Kosuth’s art, the work describes itself: here, five words are rendered literally in the titled material, collapsing language and image. A self-reflexive commentary on its own making, this is an early example of an artwork that calls attention to its context and presentation.

Influenced by Minimalism’s dematerialization of the art object, Kosuth sought to demystify the act of creation and diminish the intervention of the artist’s hand by having the work fabricated in neon. Many of Kosuth’s contemporaries— including Bruce Nauman and Dan Flavin— worked in this material, which invoked the language of commercial advertising and referred the viewer to the work’s surrounding architecture. Neon, for Kosuth, was neutral and legible, and he emphasizes these qualities by leaving visible the wires, transformer, and power source. Made as part of a series of language-based pieces in colored neon, Five Words in Green Neon and other early works by Kosuth sought to transform theory into practice, visually rendering semantic propositions that shift art, along with the viewer, away from painting toward the realm of ideas.