(In)visible writing in art and performance

Considering writing and performance in its broadest sense, this article questions the role of text in art works where the presence of the textual element does not seek to make an immediate visual impact, but rather hides behind conventions of administration (Art & Language); exhibition information (Teresa Margolles) or contracts (Adrian Piper; Gina Pane; Marina Abramović; Margolles). Through a comparison of two installation pieces linked to conceptual art and exhibited at Invisible: art about the unseen 1957-2012 (Hayward Gallery, London), the ways in which this ‘quiet’ text questions the conventions of language as a static form is discussed with reference to ideas of the figural put forward by Jean-François Lyotard in Discourse, Figure. Lyotard’s concern for the ‘thickness’ of language is exemplified in the writings of Marguerite Duras as pictured in an article by Sanford. S. Ames, printed in the journal Visible Language in 1978. Such references help us to recognise the role that textual practice has played in the development of contemporary art practice as both discursive and unsettled: an art history of revisiting, re-performance and restlessness.