The “work” of post-conceptual writing: the strange case of Édouard Levé
The “work” of post-conceptual writing: the strange case of Édouard Levé

Summary/Abstract: This article explores the differences, if not incompatibility, between the para- or even post-conceptual work of Édouard Levé, and the sort of canonical Conceptualism promoted in Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith’s anthology, Against Expression, as well as the practice of three contemporary American Conceptualists. The exploration takes place on the basis of an historical excursus into the various Conceptualist traditions, a theoretical exploration of media-based conceptual theory, a discussion of the work of three ‘staple’ contemporary Conceptualists, and finally a detailed probe into Levé’s writing career based on a comparative reading with Goldsmith’s Conceptualist practice. The article makes a case against simple appropriation of the oeuvre of Edouard Levé for the Conceptualist cause by showing how his first text exhibits an explicit conceptual intention but thwarts its accomplishment, and the other three perform a rewriting of conceptual tenets that entails a break from Conceptualist aesthetics and poetics.

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