What does “language” mean to Art?
It is interesting to know how art had treated “language” in historical point of view. Among the artists in the 20th century, I think Picasso and Braque, the cubists, and Klee were the first to build language into artwork. The cubists metonymically arranged the real words on the canvas, and Klee drew the signs that metaphorically intimate the illusion. Needless to say, those ways of expression examined and reinforced ability of the artists who controlled language visually. Modern Art had produced numerous works that took motif and subject of “language.” What those various works had in common was the fact that they established independence through destruction and creation of language. All sorts of techniques (analysis and synthesis) were required at the level of signifiant of the language. Meanwhile, at the level of signifié, Conceptual Art, which was popular in the latter half of the 20th century, the 60s, stressed the importance of the meaning (concept) of the expression.

As just described, language had played various roles in Art, but primacy of language over visual elements had not changed. Even monochrome paintings, which seem to reject language and meaning, could not eliminate language (meaning) completely. Now in the 21st century, what kind of strategies Art should plot to fight with meaning? Being armed with “a concept without an object”, Akihiko Amano tries to avoid oppression. His expression evokes meaning by making use of sentence-like-form, however, since we don’t know its words and grammar, we don’t understand what it means. Despite this, his work stimulates our desire to know its meaning. Seeing words placed on the canvas, you find the work Conceptual, but the words themselves don’t send any message. Conceptual Art without a concept, that is a trap set up by Amano to entrap viewers.
Kentaro Ichihara