One and Three Chairs

One of Joseph Kosuth's most famous works that depicts the different linguistic nature of art is ‘One and Three Chairs’, 1965, which includes a chair, a photo of a chair, and the written definition of a chair. Kosuth wanted to explore how language and visual art interact with one another.

"One and Three Chairs" is a clear example of the way Concept Art works with various levels of abstraction. Kosuth combined a chair (reality), a photograph of the chair (sign), and a dictionary definition of "chair" (designation) to create a work which clearly illustrates the limited information value of object, representation and language. This leads to the question as to what information value art possesses.