The Berardo Collection

American conceptual artist and writer strongly interested in philosophy and the social sciences in general. He studied at the Toledo Museum School of Design between 1955 and 1962, and at the Cleveland Art Institute where he completed his studies as a painter. In 1965, he began producing works based on writing and, at the end of this decade, he became the American editor of the British publication Art & Language, for which he wrote numerous theoretical texts on Conceptual Art. He founded the Museum of Normal Art, one of the first American spaces to exhibit Conceptual Art, and where he held his first one-man show. During the 70s, he continued to place anonymous messages in public spaces, suggesting that art did not depend on the artist but, in fact, on the society it was part of. In the years that followed, he returned to gallery spaces, using reproductions of historic pictures and texts in works like Cathexis, towards developing his research into the functions of art. In 1972 and 1982, he took part in "documenta" 5 and 7, respectively, in Kassel. In 1992, he presented the installation, Documenta-Flânerie at "documenta" 9. Kosuth was one of the precursors of Analytic Conceptual Art.