(born in Toldeo/Ohio in 1945)
Titled (Art as an Idea) [Analysis], 1968, mounted photograph, 122 x 122 cm

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist

Provenance:
Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Basel, Art Basel-Messe Basel, 2017

…What is the function of art, or the nature of art? If we continue our
analogy of the forms art takes as being art’s language one can realize then
that a work of art is a kind of proposition presented within the context
of art as a comment on art. We can then go further and analyze the types
of ’propositions’.
A. I. Ayer’s evaluation of Kant’s distinction between analytic and
synthetic is useful to us here: ”A proposition is analytic when its validity
depends solely on the definitions of the symbols it contains, and synthetic
when its validity is determined by the facts of experience?” The analogy
I will attempt to make is one between the art condition and the condition
of the analytic proposition. In that they don't appear to be believable as
anything else, nor about anything [other than art) the forms of art most
clearly. finally referable only to art have been forms closest to analytical
propositions.
Works of art are analytic propositions. That is, if viewed within their
context—as art—they provide no information what-so-ever about any matter-of fact. A work of art is a tautology in that it is a presentation of the artist’s intention, that is, he is saying that a particular work of art is art which means, is a definition of art. Thus, that it is art is true a priori'
[which is what Iudd means when he states that ”if someone calls it art it’s art")...

Joseph Kosuth, Art after philosophy and after: collected writings, 1966-1990, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, 1991, pp. 19-20