Art By Telephone

[Various]
Art By Telephone
Chicago, USA: Museum Of Contemporary Art, 1969
33 rpm, 12" vinyl record, gatefold sleeve
Edition size unknown


The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago opened it's doors in 1967 and planned an exhibition for the following year which would highlight the then-nascent trend towards conceptualization in art. Artists from around the world were invited to participate, not by shipping art works or traveling to produce them in situ, but rather by providing instructions over the telephone, with the works fabricated locally. The curation eschewed blueprints, sketches and written descriptions, aiming to focus entirely on verbal exchanges over the telephone. 

The show took its inspiration from Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's "telephone pictures" from 1922, which were created by the artist dictating instructions over the phone to a manufacturer. The works are often cited in the history of conceptual art as a key moment that emphasized an artist's ideas over personal craftsmanship. 

The exhibition was dedicated to Marcel Duchamp (who died the year prior) and John Cage (who declined to participate). Many, if not most, of the artists who did accept the museum’s invitation, were influenced by one or both in some way, accepting the idea of process and experience over finished object.

Artists exhibited in Art by Telephone included: Siah Armajani, Arman, Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Iain Baxter, Mel Bochner, George Brecht, Jack Burnham, James Lee Byars, Robert H. Cumming, Francois Dallegret, Jan Dibbets, John Giorno, Robert Grosvenor, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Dick Higgins, Davi Det Hompson, Robert Huot, Alain Jacquet, Ed Keinholz, Joseph Kosuth, Les Levine, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Guenther Uecker, Stan VanDerBeek, Bernar Venet, Frank Lincoln Viner, Wolf Vostell, William Wegman, and William T. Wiley.