Romantic conceptualism

In 2006, Jörg Hiser curated an exhibition entitled Romantic Conceptualism, which aimed to point towards a group of artists who, since the sixties, express an evident element of romanticism in a conceptual practice.

The Now:

Excerpt from a conversation between Mladen Stilinović and Ariane Daoust, Zagreb, June 2009

 

AD: You make a distinction between your practice and that of Western Conceptual art. Boris Groys has coined the term “Romantic Conceptualism” to describe this kind of art in your part of the world. What do you think of it?

MS: It’s just another approach to art. Conceptual art in the West references reason and philosophy, whereas here it also references literature, poetry, everyday language, emotions and many other things besides. This difference is cultural, and is explained by a different attitude or state of mind. You can’t say that Conceptual art pertains to the Romantic spirit or to poetry in the West. In fact, these words are hated because Conceptual artists are cold, rigid and innocent.

http://www.voxphoto.com/english/expositions/stilinovic_mladen/stilinovic_mladen.html 

The Past

As Walter Benjamin suggests of the Romantic sensibility, “the thoroughgoing mystic must not merely leave in suspense the communicability of all knowing, but must directly deny it … a depth greater than ordinary logic can attain.”  

(Benjamin, Walter. “The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism” In: Selected writings, Volume 1.  Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University; 2004. p. 139.)

Sol Lewitt proposes, “Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists.  They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach." ( Lewitt, Sol. Sentences on Conceptual Art, 1969)