Installation view: Wet Conceptualism, Opening Gallery, New York, 2023. Courtesy Opening Gallery.

Wet Conceptualism

February 2023 by William Corwin

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“The notion of wet conceptualism is posited against mainstream conceptual work, in this context “dry:” what comes to mind in this context are works such as An Oak Tree (1973) of Michael Craig Martin, or the oeuvre of Joseph Kossuth. There are borderline cases presented in this novel and convincing survey of sweeter, more rosy conceptual art: ironically, co-curator (with Sozita Goudouna) Warren Neidich’s piece Art Before Philosophy After Art (2015) sits firmly on this middle ground. Text based, it demands reading, presenting a title-as-text-as-list. But the text dissolves in a murky green form, a modernist assemblage, the Braque-like form underlines Neidich’s point that wet involves seductive color and significant form, formalist signifiers, on top of an insistence on the didactic-as-form.” – William Corwin