The closest from OED are:
etiolate: 1. trans. To render (a plant) pale or colourless by excluding the light from it; to blanch. 2. transf. To give a pale and sickly hue to (a human being or his skin). 3. fig. (See next, ppl. a. [Blanched, pallid, colourless. Also fig.]) 4. intr. To become white or whiter; to blanch; to be whitened by exclusion of sunlight, as plants.and
ætiology: 1. The assignment of a cause, the rendering of a reason; also, the reason annexed, the wherefore of a command or utterance. 2. The science or philosophy of causation; that part of philosophy which treats of the demonstration of causes; the part of any special science which speculates on the causes of its phenomena. 3. That branch of medical science which investigates the causes and origin of diseases; the scientific exposition of the origin of any disease.The two seem not entirely unrelated, especially in connection with conceptual art, but that is probably just a coincidence.
The original sentence, by the way, is:
Actually, what we [Art & Lanauge] want to resist is the thought that Conceptual Art is or was a readily recognized and ordered artistic style which remains inviolate in the hands of some purists and which has been variously abandoned or aetiolated by others like ourselves. (from A&L, "We Aimed to Be Amateurs")Curious. I'm guessing the first one, but I'm not sure. What do you think?
4 comments:
I'm pretty sure, esp given their philosophy background, that they are forming a verb based on the second meaning. Since they (along with Kosuth) often get accused of hijacking the meaning of "Conceptualism" and were so self-archiving that, given easy access to their materials and not easy access to, say, Poezdki za gorod, one might mistakenly think that what brought Euro-American Conceptualism into being was also true globally.
Just a guess, though.
Yes, I 'spose they wouldn't waste words on countering those who mistakenly thought they had single-handedly shriveled up conceptual art to a pale, sickly nubbin. Of course they would fight against the charge of assigning conceptual art its raison d'être. Although, I still like how both meanings could easily merge into one in this way of thinking ;)
"single-handedly shriveled up conceptual art to a pale, sickly nubbin" - or reduced art to reams and reams and reams of sickly white paper :).
"Although, I still like how both meanings could easily merge into one in this way of thinking ;)" - given your creativity, I'm sure I could throw in the word "guacamole" in the mix, and you'd still make it make sense :).
Aw, shucks.
Also,...mmm, guacamole....
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