Deliberately low-keyed art often resembles ruins, like neolithic rather than classical monuments, amalgams of past and future, remains of something “more,” vestiges of some unknown venture. The ghost of content continues to hover over the most obdurately abstract art. The more open, or ambiguous, the experience offered, the more the viewer is forced to depend upon his [sic] own perceptions.
Lucy R. Lippard, from Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972
I’m a long time fan of Lippard’s books, particularly Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory, The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society and The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Essays on Feminist Art. This particular excerpt goes back a few years, from one of Lippard’s curatorial ventures into conceptual art. And yet the quote feels timeless and is still compelling for “artifact makers”* like me (in spite of Lippard’s claim that content persistently haunts most abstract art, a point of view I do not share.) Neolithic ruins. Vestiges of some unknown venture. Amalgams of past and future. These phrases provoke, incite, delight, enchant, and lights start flashing and flickering somewhere in my consciousness the moment I read them. Throe of wonder perhaps, since I have never tried to parse out what it is about these particular concepts that elicit such a powerful response. Leaving it in the unknown seems just fine.
*There are many phrases in use to distinguish between conceptual artists and those that build, make or create an object. This is just one.