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How to Subvert the Art World and Get Away with It

A peek inside conceptual artist Stephen Kaltenbach's decades-long art game.
BURY WITH THE ARTIST, 1968–2010 aluminum and unknown contents. 5 x 5 x 2¾ in. All images courtesy Marlborough Chelsea

In the late 60s, conceptual artist Stephen Kaltenbach burst onto the New York art scene, populating the city with subversive works, then vanished just as quickly. Before street art, Kaltenbach placed single message bronze plaques and stencil graffiti around the city. Kaltenbach also invented the bad painter Es Que? and gaudy sculptor Clyde Dillon, and anticipated culture jamming by taking out a number of conceptual ads in Artforum, urging people to do things like spread rumors and perpetuate hoaxes. After decamping for Central California in 1970, Kaltenbach fashioned himself a “regional artist.” Now, the 76-year old Kaltenbach resurfaces with Viewing Room, a retrospective at Marlborough Chelsea that runs until June 18. True to form, Kaltenbach supplied The Creators Project with an essay explaining his methods, and how he left the art world so many years ago.

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The following has been posted verbatim from Kaltenbach's original essay. Only the punctuation has been edited, as per VICE's Style Guide. 

YOU ARE ME, 1969. Artforum magazine, December, 1969, page 75. 2 1/4 x 10 1/2 in.

Protocol of Opposites

In my experience one concept and subsequent Art Action leads to another. So I will try to string a few together. When I got to New York I was operating under the self-imposed protocol of observing contemporary artists and their goals and ambitions and ways of working and then looking for opposite viewpoints. I named this the Protocol of Opposites. One of the first things that was evident was the driving need to get a show in an important gallery or a museum.

My Street Works (Sidewalk Plaques, Graffiti Works, and Personal Appearance Manipulations) were conceived of and done in response to that attitude: art that needed no establishment venue. What those pieces led to was the realization that I was working for a mostly non art initiated audience; these works for the most part were seen by people who were passersby on the street. This suggested the Targeted Works which were pieces made for a specific audience. The Hoaxes were for art historians. The Artforum ads were Micro Manifestos for art professionals. The first Time Capsules were for museum staff: preservationists and curators and also for art theorists, writers and reviewers.

Viewing Room installation view

Causal Art 

The line of work joined to another protocol which was the attempt to extend Minimalism beyond the simplification of the object. This took many forms; one which I called “Causal Art” was the attempt to enhance the achievements of my peers in the work that they were doing, essentially minimizing my role in the physically active aspect of the art making process.

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Some delightful realizations occurred from this: also reduced was my own access to information as to what exactly were the effects of my Art Action; what art did I make?

ART WORKS, 1968–2010 bronze. Edition 35 of 100. 5 x 8 x 1/4 in.

In other words, only minimal knowledge was available of the products of my work. While I was well aware of the advantage of seeing artwork with a "fresh eye," there was no doubt that the artist, who spent huge amounts of time in the studio, was working from a depth of understanding that was greater than what I could achieve.

This initiated the Micro Manifestos, the ads in Artforum, in my view a less aggressive way to exert the same influence.

Viewing Room installation view

Bad Painting in the 1960s, and its Recent Revival 

Another focus of the Protocol of Opposites came from the observed conversation happening in the artist's bars: the discussion about good art, especially painting. My opposite was, naturally, Bad Painting. This then led to the Life Dramas: the assuming of a persona of a failed artist or at least one who was challenged by his lack of understanding of the purposes of art.

My first artist was Es Que?, a couch painter who was attempting to get a show at the gallery in the furniture section at Lord and Taylors department store. This required the production of nine paintings in a period of thirty days which was the time I allocated for the project. This attempt failed as the curator said that I needed more time to develop and that I should try back in a year. I considered this Life Drama to be a tragi-comedy.

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RAINBOW BUTTON, 1968. Plastic buttons. Edition 994 – 1,000 of 1,000 (last 6 from edition). 1¾ x 1 ¾ in.

My understanding was that I was playing the “long game.” Much of my work needed to be hidden for a period of time before being uncovered by interested art professionals—or not. A close friend; an art historian who was in on most of what I was doing was very concerned that nobody would ever care enough to look into my art. While I realized that was a possibility, I felt that my work was on its own after it left the studio and had to survive on its own merits.

The dynamic was, however, that I was being invited to be in museum shows in New York and Europe and my secret agendas were being exposed to the art criticism and deconstruction that goes with that. I felt strongly that my work needed time to mature in private to gain the gravitas necessary to operate as I wanted it to. To achieve this I decided to do my third Life Drama which I thought of as Hyper Realism. I would leave the contemporary art world and re-establish myself as a regional artist, maybe a painter or a sculptor. Meanwhile I could continue my conceptual work in private without the constant examination that went with New York's exposure. I, of course, had my own ambitions so this was difficult but I was very interested in forcing myself to do “hard things.” I referred to this work as The Elephant Project or sometimes the Black Project.

WISDOM, 1970 – present. Gold plated steel and unknown contents. 7 ½ x 9 ½ x 7 ½ in.

How I Left The Art World 

I had been doing works that operated as announcements for subsequent pieces. In this case I did an art work for Lucy Lippard's 557087/955 000 to announce my departure from public contemporary art. My index card for Lucy's show was completely anonymous: a white card with no lines on it and no writing in a plain white envelope which I slipped under her door. I titled this piece, "fade to white," after the film maker's edit to switch from scene to scene.

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Click here to see more of Stephen Kaltenbach’s work.

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