5 Discussions in the Years 1976 to 1994, at Greenwich Street, New York City, 1976–1994

Ian Wilson has long focused on spoken dialogue as his artistic practice. “All art is information and communication,” he once explained. “I present oral communication as an object. . . . I’ve chosen to speak rather than sculpt.” In 1968 Wilson began making work from the fleeting medium of conversation by staging series of verbal engagements over time with friends or other artists. These “Discussions”—which tend to start with an open-ended philosophical question—are meant to exist in the moment of dialogue only, with certificates like the ones installed here serving as the sole records. 5 Discussions in the Years 1976 to 1994, at Greenwich Street, New York City marks each occasion of a decades-spanning dialogue between Wilson and the American abstract painter Robert Ryman.