In the winter of 1970/1971, five galleries announced a series of exhibitions of the American Conceptual artist Robert Barry (b. 1936) by mailing invitation cards bearing the enigmatic sentence: ‘Some places to which we can come, and for a while “be free to think about what we are going to do” (Marcuse)’ (Figs 1 and 2).1¹ The meaning of this phrase is as elusive as its function is ambiguous. Indeed, the sentence is not the title of Barry’s show, but the first iteration of a text-piece known as the Marcuse Piece. Barry has since presented the five invitation cards together or installed the piece as a wall-text devoid of any reference to the galleries listed on the invitation cards (Fig. 3). Like much of Barry’s work, the Marcuse Piece holds a significant yet understated place in histories of Conceptual art. Critics have either alluded to the piece’s hopeful tone, which channeled the spirit of the counterculture, or dwelled upon the artist’s use of a quotation from the German philosopher and New Left theorist Herbert Marcuse.2² Such commentators often cite Barry’s Marcuse Piece as evidence of the utopian spirit of Conceptual art, which strived to make art anew and to subvert the commercial excesses of the art world by using trivial materials of little monetary value.

中文翻译：

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实话实说，但要倾斜：找回罗伯特·巴里（Robert Barry）的马尔库塞作品（Marcuse Piece）中安吉拉·戴维斯（Angela Davis）的身影

在1970/1971年冬季，五个画廊通过邮寄带有神秘句子的邀请卡，宣布了美国概念艺术家罗伯特·巴里（生于1936年）的一系列展览：可以自由地思考我们要做”（马尔库塞）”（图1和图2）。1 ¹这句话的意思是一样难以捉摸因为其功能不明确。确实，这句话不是巴里（Barry）的表演的标题，而是文本片段的第一次迭代，即马尔库塞作品（Marcuse Piece）。此后，巴里将这五张邀请卡一起展示，或将其作为壁挂文字安装在墙上，没有提及邀请卡上列出的画廊（图3）。像巴里的许多作品一样，马尔库塞作品在概念艺术的历史上占有重要而又被低估的位置。批评者要么暗指片充满希望的语气，这引导了反传统的精神，或栖于艺术家使用报价从德国哲学家和新左派理论家赫伯特Marcuse.2 ^2个这样的评论家经常引用巴里的马尔库塞件作为证据概念艺术的乌托邦精神，它通过使用少量货币价值的琐碎材料来努力使艺术焕然一新，并颠覆艺术世界的商业过剩。