What is art’s relationship to truth? Does it hide the truth? Represent it?  Reveal it? This class will be an investigation of these questions through a discussion of Conceptual art. We will first address one of the earliest instances of this debate, Plato’s condemnation of art in The Republic. Next, we will look to a few of the key players – both artists and theorists  - in the Conceptual Art movement to see how they addressed Plato’s concerns and how they took up this investigation as a scientific project. We will look at conceptual art through the theoretical guises of art as idea, art as experience and art as document.

Students enrolled in this course should have already fulfilled the university’s 1A requirement.The students will write a short diagnostic essay at the beginning of the semester, 1 short paper and a longer research paper at the conclusion of the course. In addition to the papers, the students will also write brief (approximately 1 page) responses to the readings. Each student must turn in at least 10 during the course of the semester. The student should use these responses to raise questions and to point out interesting moments in the text and connections between the texts. 

The focus of this class is on improving both reading and writing skills. Through frequent short writing assignments, the students will work to improve their interpretative skills. We will stress close readings of texts and artworks in both the papers and classroom discussions.

Texts: Plato, The Republic; Nietzsche, “On Truth and Falsity in the Extramoral Sense; Paul Wood, Conceptual Art; Joseph Kosuth, “Art After Philosophy”; Rosalind Deutsche, “Property Values: Hans Haacke, Real Estate, and the Museum”; Hans Haacke, “Museums, Managers of Consciousness”; Lucy Lippard and John Chandler, “ The Dematerialization of Art”; Sol Lewitt, “Sentences on Conceptual Art,” “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art”; Frazer Ward, “Gray Zone: Watching Shoot”; Andre Bazin, “Ontology of the Photographic Image”; Jeff Wall, “Marks of Indifference”; Walter Benjamin, “A Short History of Photography,” “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”; Sigfried Kracauer, “Photography.”