Produced on the occasion of Ian Wilson’s Discussion at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1 March, 2009.

Ian Wilson presented spoken language as his artistic medium, liberating art from its material form and opening it up to the unpredictability of verbal exchange. Through his Discussions, he engaged individuals in private and public conversations about verbal communication. Wilson views speech as dematerialized sculpture, believing that words enable one to “have the essential features of the object at your disposal.”

*Please note this publication is secondhand and may have some traces of previous ownership.

For over 33 years, the Amsterdam gallery Art & Project (1968–1998) was a focal point in the development of contemporary art in the Netherlands. Featuring artists such as stanley brouwn, Hanne Darboven, Daniel Buren, Marcel Broodthaers, Ian Wilson, Bas Jan Ader, Yutaka Matsuzawa, Jan Dibbets, Gilbert & George, Richard Long, Ger van Elk, Charlotte Posenenske, and Lawrence Weiner.

To draw attention to their exhibitions, Art & Project produced a total of 156 bulletins. These bulletins soon became an experimental medium, becoming a vehicle for the ideas of conceptual artists and sometimes functioned as a conceptual work of art in its own right.

Ian Wilson has been exploring the aesthetic potential of spoken language since the late 1960s. His ongoing body of work—beginning with “oral communication” and eventually including his signature Discussions—began in 1968 with the spoken word “time”.

Over the course of the 1970s, his discussions took on a more formal character, and his interests shifted towards ‘The Known and Unknown’, based on Plato’s ‘The Parmenides’. In contrast to a ‘performance’, during a discussion the audience can actively take part in realising the concept of ‘oral communication’. Wilson does not want the discussion to be recorded either on film or audio. Wilson summarises the core of these discussions in a book series entitled ‘section’.

Ian Wilson has been exploring spoken language as an art form since 1968. He has described his own work as “oral communication” and later as “discussion”. At Wilson’s own request, his work is neither filmed nor recorded, thereby preserving the transient nature of the spoken word. On April 28, 2013 a discussion, based on the topic of The Absolute in Art, took place at the Haubrok Foundation, Berlin.

Ian Wilson has been exploring spoken language as an art form since 1968. He has described his own work as “oral communication” and later as “discussion”. At Wilson’s own request, his work is neither filmed nor recorded, thereby preserving the transient nature of the spoken word. A discussion, based on the topic of The Absolute in Art, took place in May 2017 atKW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and reassembled the artist, the director and current staff members of the institution.

Conceptual artist Ian Wilson (1940, Durban, South Africa) has been interested in spoken language as an art form since 1968. At first, he described his own work as ‘oral communication’, and later on as ‘discussion’. At Wilson’s own request, his work is never recorded either as film or audio in order to preserve the transient nature of the spoken word.

During a visit of Wilson to the Van Abbemuseum in 2006, the idea arose to make a catalogue raisonné, containing all of Wilson’s discussions from 1968 until 2008. Using documentation and the recollection of participants, the fleeting works have been catalogued by researcher Chantal Kleinmeulman.

Designed by Inge Ketelers.