Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov

Conceptual art, eh? It’s not for everyone. First emerging in the 1960s as a reaction against the commodification of art, at its core is the belief that an artist’s idea is the art, and that one’s execution of an idea is superfluous. As an art form, it has left many sceptical viewers scratching their heads in the decades since its emergence, representing to some the art world at its most ludicrous.

Shoreditch gallery Raven Row is hosting an impressive retrospective of a pioneer of conceptual art, American artist Christine Kozlov. Having begun her career in New York’s East Village art scene before relocating to the UK in 1977, Kozlov’s experiments with conceptual art include many works which are quintessential to the form. Some artworks on view here comprise merely written instructions, describing an idea and how one might construct it if they wish. Also present are a number of reproductions of her ‘work lists’, lists of her previous ideas which she would submit to anthologies and catalogues of conceptual art, the list being considered the work of art itself.

One early idea, or work, which appears on all subsequent lists is called ‘Information: No Theory’, which centres a tape recorder set up so that the recorded data is erased by a new recording before it is ever played back. An actual construction of this concept is also on view, although seeing it come to fruition actually helps to drive home the notion that it is the concept that’s interesting, not the visual reality - in execution, it is very much just a tape recorder on a table. Another work which takes the form of a plain white canvas with the words ‘THIS IS NOT ART’ written in block capitals, and the self-explanatory ‘271 Blank Sheets of Paper Corresponding To 271 Days of Concepts Rejected’ further test the limits of the artform.

Also on view are works by the artist’s peers, including a film by Lizzie Borden and a number of pieces by Stanley Brouwn and On Kawara. A selection of Kozlov’s collaborations with the Turner Prize-nominated group Art & Language are also included, marking the artist’s pivot towards prioritising group work later in her career.

Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov might leave your head a little sore by the end of it, but for those curious about the artform, it’s a great testament to an artist and a movement which sought to push the boundaries of what we deem to be art.