Art & Language
Art & Language’s earliest works date from more than 40 years ago. Its name describes an artistic practice developed in response to the collapse of the individualistic cultural protocols of Modernism. Since 1977, Art & Language has been identified with the collaborative work of Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden and their theoretical and critical collaboration with Charles Harrison. Harrison very sadly passed away in August, 2009. He contributed to this questionnaire shortly before his death. Baldwin and Ramsden live and work in Middleton Cheney, UK. A major exhibition of the recent work of Art & Language will be held at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art in Finland from 14 October 2009 to 10 January 2010.
What could you imagine doing if you didn’t do what you do?
To the chagrin of some, we often do something other than we (are thought to) do.
What images keep you company in the space where you work?
A print of a William Hogarth self-portrait from 1764; Sewage Lust, a poster by BANK from 1997; a photograph of Gustave Courbet’s grave, and, (temporarily), a painting by Chéri Samba, Dans le monde de jaloux (In the World of Jealous, 1991).
What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?
This question admits of multiple answers. One of us can recall being scared as a child by William Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World (1851–3). Otherwise, as young-ish teenagers two of us were compelled – or something – by Vincent van Gogh’s work, both early and late, and one of us by J.M.W. Turner’s The Parting of Hero and Leander (1837) in London’s National Gallery. As for works that bore upon us as (near-) grown-ups, we think of the all-over paintings of Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings, Frank Stella’s early work and Jasper Johns’ ‘Flags’.
If you could live with only one piece of art what would it be?
It’s hard to enter into the spirit of this question. However: 1) a good Cézanne still life or 2) a John Sell Cotman watercolour or 3) a painting by Henri Fantin-Latour of roses in a glass vase or 4) almost anything by Caspar David Friedrich. We can’t come to a decision, either captiously or seriously. It might be easier to live with no art than just one item.
What is your favourite title of an art work?
Beyond the Mules (a fictional work in a Dornford Yates novel), Fugue on a Theme of Resurrection (a British semi-abstract painting by an artist whose name we can’t remember), or Untitled.
What do you wish you knew?
How to write something effortlessly amusing in answer to this question.
What should change?
Our political and moral culture.
What should stay the same?
Socialism, otherwise nothing much.
What music are you listening to?
1) Richard Wagner 2) The Red Krayola 3) Rock ’n’ Roll fundamentals.
What are you reading?
The Byzantines (2006) by Averil Cameron, The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays (2008) by Richard Taruskin, African Royal Court Art by Michèle Coquet (1998), Nigerian Diary (2009) by Paul Wood and The Picture as Spectre: Proust and Hubert Robert (2009) by Thomas Baldwin.
What do you like the look of?
The sheep in the meadow.
What is art for?
We’ve written extensively on the matter. In doing so, we have demonstrated that we really don’t know. Here, however, might begin a via negativa: a litany concerning what it is not for.
frieze is now accepting letters to the editors for possible publication at editors@frieze.com.
