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Dimensions: measurements each glass panel: 125 by 125cm by 1.2cm.; 49 1/4 by 49 1/4 in by 1in. alternate measurements each definition: 125 by 85.5cm.; 49 1/4 by 33 5/8 in,

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Provenance: Private Collection, Switzerland

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Literature: Willy Rotzler, 'Glas in Spiegel der Kunst', in: Du, August 1977, no. 438, p. 61, illustrated

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Notes: This work is accompanied by a certificate signed by the artist and dated 1965

"I have always stated [...] that my ideas were not meant to be considered aesthetic objects in themselves but rather refer to an invisible 'beauty' or aesthetic which is the idea. The beauty is intended to exist in the idea not in the photostat." The artist in: in Alexander Alberro, Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity, Massachusetts 2003, p. 39 Glass - one and four defined is one of Kosuth's ground breaking early works that would define him as an artist and the Conceptual Art movement which he championed. He would later refer to this work as part of his First Investigations. Throughout his career Kosuth focused on the complex links between text and image, and between image and subjectivity. Here, in Glass - one and four defined, Kosuth juxtaposes word definitions, Clear, Square, Glass, Lean with their physical and active counterparts. The definitions refer to what we see before us and whose arrangement is carefully instructed by the artist according to Kosuth's original documentation from 1965; four identical clear square glass panels that lean against a wall with their word definitions installed above them, explaining plainly what we already see but may not clearly focus upon. In constructing this set up, Kosuth emphasises the overlooked conceptual relationships and disparities between an object's description and its visual image; an investigation that has formed the central crux of his concept-based art making ever since.

Closely linked with like-minded artists of 1960s New York such as Sol Lewitt and Carl Andre, Kosuth was at the heart of a pinnacle conceptual movement that questioned the very nature of artistic practice, the role of the artist and the validity of the art object itself. Pivotal to Kosuth's identity as an artist was the belief that "art is the idea; the idea is the art". He strove to ascertain this through deconstructing the traditional unity of an artwork through applying a systematic approach of reductivism to each of its component parts. By playing on the specific operation of language as he does in this fine example, he injected a concept into an artistic realm that was to become a cornerstone for the evolution of conceptual art.