Words to be looked at : language in 1960s art
"Language has been a primary element in visual art since the 1960s - whether in the form of printed texts, painted signs, words on the wall or recorded speech. In 'Words to Be Looked At', Liz Kotz traces this practice to its beginnings, examining works of visual art, poetry, and experimental music created in and around New York City from 1958 to 1968. In many of these works, language has been reduced to an object nearly emptied of meaning. She makes two works the "bookends" of her study: the "text score" for John's Cage's 1952 work 4'33"--Written instructions directing a performer to remain silent during three arbitrarily determined time brackets - and Andy Warhol's notorious a: a novel - twenty-four hours of endless talk, taped and transcribed - published by Grove Press in 1968
Print Book, English, ©2007
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., ©2007