About This Artwork

In 1965 Joseph Kosuth began using language to replace pictorial illusionism. He first featured enlarged dictionary definitions in a series of works that included everyday objects, such as a chair or hammer, along with a photograph of the object and a photostat of its printed definition. Titled (Art as Idea as Idea), [Value] belongs to his next series, called The First Investigation (1966–68), in which he no longer used objects, and the definitions of words such as meaning, thought, and image exist as the work. The artist explained, “I felt I had found a way to make art without formal components being confused for an expressionist composition. The expression was the idea, not the form—the forms were only a device in the service of the idea.”