Born in Toledo, Ohio, Joseph Kosuth is one of the first Conceptual artists, concerned with the mechanics of meaning in language, especially words used in various contexts. He has done installations with text, quotes, and definitions sometimes combined with photographs and objects. In 1969, when he was 24 years old, Kosuth wrote an essay about art that was published and "became a founding text of Conceptualism". He asserted that philosophy was dead and was replaced by art whose purpose was to deliver information with disposable materials, which were "little more than historical curiosities". In this way, art became an ascetic faith and fulfills spiritual needs.

Maturing as an artist, Joseph Kosuth held to his conceptualist theories bu...