The works of the artists taking part in the 'Conceptual Obsession - Obsessive Conceptualism' deal with the ways in which manual involvement with some material by means of the use of some system of organisation of it is an extremely delicate semantic tool. Obviously, after the destructuring of the authority of art the concept of the artistic gesture can only exist as a cliché. Contemporary artists are constantly redefining their relation with the handwork texture of their work, seen through specific contexts of signification. Whether it is the case of a kind of destructuring of the medium of painting, or of the conversion of ornaments into semantically delimited depictions, or of a changing of design into an art object, artists construct and extend in this way the bounds of thought. Differing methods, such as mechanical repetition during the construction process, precision in the manner of execution, absolute emphasis on the visual nature of the result, serial reproduction, the highlighting of detail, standardisation - these constitute different versions of the elevation of a physical occupation into an intellectual act.
Seen from a romantic viewpoint, artists often seem like creative individuals who are governed by a vague insuperable predisposition or tendency, a constant urge to 'make' something, a kind of psychological dependence on a state of ceaseless creativity. Often this is expressed as a preoccupation, obsession, monomania - almost a kind of inner compulsion. But isn't this stance a kind of communication which attempts to be - and perhaps is - as absolute, specific, and unequivocal as language itself? These works - typical of contemporary trends in art - explore how there can be a way of thinking beyond verbal narration or the expressiveness of the work of the hands.
