Five words in orange neon

Mediums: panel, neon, transformer.
Location: private collection.

While still a student at the New York School of Fine Arts, Joseph Kosuth refused the traditional painting and began to express ideas, rather than create tangible objects of art. This language work is one of many the artist created using neon tubes and a transformer. This kind of creativity was inspired by the research of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In logic and linguistics, as established by this outstanding philosopher, the affirmation of a fundamental fact or truth is unchanging and irreversible, even if it is rephrased in any way possible. Inspired by the theory that he agreed with, Kosuth equated the meaning of the phrase with the way the words were visualized. In this case, they are shown as orange neon tubes in the form of a sentence. The author plays with linguistic and verbal literality – he gives the viewer a visual equivalent to what the text says in neon letters. And this does not depend on the form of its presentation. Like in other concepts of the artist, the idea is considered more important and fundamental than the visual or aesthetic content of a work of art. The installation was sold by Christie’s London in 2006 for 158 thousand dollars.