Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965–2018

Sept 28, 2018–Apr 14, 2019


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Rule, Instruction, Algorithm:
Collapsing Instruction and Form

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Lawrence Weiner and Joseph Kosuth, both leading figures of Conceptual art, use language as their material to highlight the linguistic nature of all art and to shift emphasis from the object to the idea behind it. W. Bradford Paley’s more recent digital work also makes language its material but by displaying the code that generates his work. The pieces by these three artists all consist of the very instructions through which they have been created, self-reflexively erasing oppositions between form and content and folding them into one. Paley’s work draws attention to the fact that digital art—regardless of its visual appearance—always has a layer of code and is produced by the software used to create or manipulate it.


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Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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