Gallery Press Release — May 2025

This Is Post-Theory Art

Adam Daley Wilson

June 6 – July 18, 2025

ENGAGE Projects is pleased to present This Is Post Theory Art, a solo exhibition by painter, performance artist, and art theorist Adam Daley Wilson. The show’s visual and text-based pieces propose—first—that such a thing as Post-Theory Art may be seen in relation to conceptual art—and second—it can be defined as theory-making by an artist that is not just cognitive but also emotional and sensory-felt—landing in a viewer’s head, heart, and body all at once. Please join us on Friday, June 6th 5-7pm for the opening of This Is Post-Theory Art.

The show also proposes that one example of possible art practices in Post-Theory Art is “artist-placed public document art”—an artist creates a theory of public interest, places it into a court—art-as-law—and the court’s response lands not just in the heads, hearts, and lived experiences of the participants, but also in members of the public, if the public issue resonates.

In all of this, Post-Theory Art is proposed as human: When an artist makes a work with their head, heart, and body—all three—and when a viewer then experiences it themselves through all three, then perhaps this is a special human connection that AI is unable to do. If so, Post-Theory Art, by communicating theories through the emotional and sensorial, may be a way to preserve our human theory-making in this new time when AI can now make theories too.

The show presents three types of work: (1) Large-scale oil-stick “inscribed paintings” and “new cave paintings” with layers of text in the artist’s loose handwriting, part of the artist’s personal writing system; (2) precise visual-text pieces; and (3) smaller works that bring together the elements of the show. Daley Wilson has also researched and written a number of informal articles about Post-Theory Art that can be searched on Google / Bing.

Daley Wilson is a self-taught artist with degrees from Stanford Law and U. Penn. His work draws from his self-study of conceptual art history, text-based art in other cultures and times, semiotics, and art theory. He makes his work during his creative hypomanias that arise from his mental illness of bipolar 1. This is his third solo show. The first two were “Must See” by Artforum (Chicago, 2021, 2023). Most recently, his work was selected for EXPO Chicago public art (2025). He practices law (constitutional, public interest), mentors artists pro bono, and serves on non-profit boards (academia, local parks, and mental illness stigma advocacy run by teens).

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Some of the broader questions raised by the art and the theory — 2024-2025.

1. What is a human being — and can theory help define that?

This question asks whether human identity is grounded primarily in cognitive capacity or in the totality of embodied, emotional, and relational life. It challenges a purely rationalist account of personhood by suggesting that ontology (the study of what exists) must account not only for thought, but also for sensation, vulnerability, and interpersonal exchange. If theory can be transmitted through flesh and feeling, then humanity itself may be defined not by abstraction alone, but by the capacity to live meaning as experience.
Fields: Philosophy of mind, phenomenology (study of embodied experience), cognitive science, affect theory, anthropology.

2. What counts as knowledge — and how do we know that we know it?

If theory can be transmitted somatically or affectively, then epistemology (the study of knowledge) must expand beyond rational or verbal forms. This raises the distinction between propositional knowledge (knowing that something is true) and embodied knowledge (knowing through physical experience or sensation). Post-Theory Art asks whether insight can be delivered through presence, feeling, or atmosphere — and whether such insight holds the same weight as articulated argument.
Fields: Epistemology, aesthetics, trauma studies, cognitive science, performance studies.

3. Can machines think — and if so, are they thinking like us?

As artificial systems increasingly generate theory-like output, the question arises whether this constitutes real thought or mere simulation. This distinction turns on whether functionalism (mind is what the system does) can account for what is lost in the absence of emotion, sensation, or lived context. Post-Theory Art proposes that true thinking may be inextricable from the embodied cognition (mind as arising from bodily experience) unique to human life.
Fields: Philosophy of AI, cognitive science, posthumanism, ethics of technology.

4. What is theory for — and who is it for?

This question considers whether theory is a private intellectual exercise or a form of public reasoning that must be felt and understood across differences. It raises concerns about the politics of knowledge — who creates it, who accesses it, and what counts as a valid mode of transmission. When theory is enacted in law, performance, or public gesture, its purpose shifts from explanation to activation.
Fields: Political philosophy, education theory, critical theory, sociology of knowledge, public humanities.

5. Is knowledge universal — or is it always embodied and situated?

This question addresses the tension between universalism (truth as context-independent) and situated knowledge (truth as shaped by embodied, cultural, or historical context). Post-Theory Art suggests that theory is never neutral — that it comes from somewhere, and from someone. If the meaning of theory depends on the body that expresses it and the body that receives it, then all knowledge may be more contingent than it appears.
Fields: Feminist epistemology, standpoint theory, postcolonial theory, cultural studies, philosophy of science.

6. Where does art end and politics begin — or can they be the same thing?

When theory is enacted through public procedures or embedded into systems of governance, the line between aesthetic practice and political participation begins to dissolve. This question challenges the traditional division between art as symbolic and politics as real. It asks whether political power can be exercised through the formal mechanisms of art — and whether the aesthetic can ever be separated from structures of control.
Fields: Aesthetics, political theory, legal philosophy, institutional critique, performance studies.

7. What is the role of the body in meaning-making?

This question explores whether interpretation and understanding can occur without bodily sensation or lived context. It challenges the legacy of mind-body dualism (the separation of thinking and sensing) by asserting that meaning is often generated through movement, touch, presence, or pain. If theory can be felt before it is understood, then the body is not just a site of expression, but a condition of knowledge.
Fields: Phenomenology, affect theory, disability studies, psychoanalysis, embodied cognition.

8. What does it mean to be accountable — ethically, legally, and institutionally?

This question concerns whether power requires visibility to become answerable, or whether responsibility can exist in absence of observation and consequence. It asks whether character (the capacity to act ethically when no one is watching) is a reliable foundation for justice, or whether systems must be designed to compel integrity where it does not arise voluntarily. This exposes the tension between internal moral disposition and external procedural enforcement, and between individual failure and systemic opacity. As artificial systems increasingly perform decision-like functions, a further uncertainty arises: can ethical behavior be expected of entities that possess neither interior life nor the capacity to err? And if human agents themselves so often act without ethical coherence, what basis remains for expecting moral consistency from the machines they build?
Fields: Moral philosophy, political theory, legal philosophy, civic ethics, philosophy of character, AI ethics.

9. Can affect — emotion, sensation, mood — be a valid mode of truth?

This question interrogates whether feelings can carry meaning with the same seriousness as logic or language. It considers whether affective knowledge (truth known through emotional or sensory resonance) should be recognized as epistemically legitimate, or whether it remains suspect within dominant intellectual frameworks. If theory can be registered as mood, rhythm, or atmosphere, the criteria for truth may need to expand.
Fields: Affect theory, philosophy of emotion, aesthetics, cognitive science, epistemology.

10. What is the future of theory in a post-human or AI-saturated world?

This question asks whether theory, as a distinctly human activity, is being eclipsed or transformed by artificial systems that mimic its surface forms. If theory can be generated by machines that do not feel, err, or suffer, then its meaning as a human gesture must be reevaluated. This is ultimately a question about humanism (the belief in human reason, dignity, and creativity as central), and whether it can survive its own technological extensions.
Fields: Posthumanism, media theory, philosophy of technology, speculative ethics, critical theory.

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Some more of the thinking and writing behind some of the art — 2024-2025.

What is post-theory art in relation to conceptual art?

A possible definition — If Conceptual Art Is About An Idea, Post-Theory Art Is How It All Relates.

In conceptual art, the [singular] idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work” — Sol LeWitt, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, 1967).

“Post-Theory art … it’s like honey bees … you go flower to flower … little bits, different things … and you make honey … you relate and connect things no one else might see.” (Wilson, This Is Post-Theory Art, 2025).

“It is not about we humans unless it is by us … anything can make a theory now … but only we make what is human … and that is Post-Theory Art.” (Wilson, 2025).

What is post-theory art in relation to post-conceptual art?

A related possible view — If Post-Conceptual Art Made Art Forms Fluid, Post-Theory Art Makes Human Art And Theories Fluid.

“The shift to post-conceptual art [is] a move . . . where the boundaries between art forms become fluid.” — Rosalind Krauss, October Journal, 2000.

“A recognition of post-theory art . . . shows where the boundaries between art forms and human theories become fluid.” (Wilson, 2025).

What is post-theory art in relation to what artists do?

Is what an artist does meaningfully distinguished from what an artist thinks or feels? — If Whatever An Artist Does Is Art, Whatever An Artist Thinks Is Also Art.

“If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.” — Bruce Nauman, 1966.

“If whatever an artist does can be art … then whatever an artist thinks and feels can be art … no matter where or how expressed.” (Wilson, 2025).

Is there evidence of post-theory art in art history?

In the words of artists themselves, here is a a very short art history of Post-Theory Art — and the debate about whether it does or should exist at all.

Brâncuși, Constantin. (Early 20th Century, Romania). “The true artist does not theorize about art, but instead creates relationships through their work.”

Calle, Sophie. (Late 20th Century, France). “The relationships between objects and people can often reveal more than the objects or people themselves.”

Chagall, Marc. (Mid 20th Century, Belarus/France). “Theories in art are often reflections of the artist’s own mind rather than the work itself, which is born from the heart.”

Eliasson, Olafur. (21st Century, Denmark). “In art, the theory is not just an intellectual exercise but a deep connection to the world around us.”

Rauschenberg, Robert. (Late 20th Century, USA). “Theories are tools; art is an act of discovery.”

Rodin, Auguste. (Late 19th Century, France). “I invent nothing, I rediscover. Seeing connections where others have not.”

A proposed definition of post-theory art: in the context of text-based art, activist art, artist-placed document art:

1. Post-Theory Art proposes three expansions of conceptual art:

   One, theory-making is art; two, an artist’s theory-placement into public spaces is an artistic act; and, three, only humans can create and place such theories as art.

   These comprise a proposed definition of Post-Theory Art.

2. A definition of Post-Theory Art asserts that much of art and theory can come only from humanity.

   Some theories just come to us and cannot be built by AI. To preserve the human role in creative expression, the humanity of our art and our theories: This Is Post-Theory Art.

3. A related definition: Artist-Placed Public Document Art is one form of Post-Theory Art:

   An artist creates a theory of public importance, then the artist embeds the artist’s theory into a text-based work, and then the artist places both in our public courts — where court rules compel a written, documentable response that is recorded in public docket.

   In Artist-Placed Document Art, activist art sets the terms of engagement; by law, the public institution of the courts, and the parties brought to court, must all respond. They cannot look away.

4. Artist-Placed Public Document Art defined further: It is more than text-based art, performance art, and activist art. It evolves our courts into places of human art; our laws into artistic mediums; our judiciary into a performative art participant on human issues to be decided by humans.

   Art itself becomes an actual act of law —a valid legal action — for the greater public interest good, by humans, for humans. Not the artificial. As such, Artist-Placed Public Document Art is just one example of many types of art, and art-hybrids, over history, and just one example of post-theory art, which is also evolving.

The above four points define Post Theory Art and one type of post-theory art. Post-Theory Art is indebted to, and makes reference to, many art histories across countries, cultures, and times — but research suggests that no artist or group has yet had a practice and theory quite like this.

Some proposed tests to see if a work is post-theory art — and to see whether there is such a thing as post-theory art at all:

Is it Post-Theory Art?

• Did the artist come up with a new theory (not just repeat or borrow one)?

• Is the theory part of the artwork itself, not just explained in a separate text?

• Does the work make you think (head), feel (heart), and physically react (body)?

• Was it made by a human, not a machine?

If the answer is yes to all of these, it is likely Post-Theory Art.

Is it Conceptual Art?

• Is the main point of the work an idea more than a feeling or a physical experience?

• Could the work exist just as a written or spoken concept?

• Is the emotional or sensory side of the work small or not important?

If yes to most of these, it is likely conceptual art, not post-theory art.

Is it Traditional Art?

• Does the work focus on visual beauty, craft, or technique?

• Is the main goal to create an emotional or physical reaction through form or aesthetics?

• Is it not centered on theory or complex ideas?

If yes to most, it’s more like traditional or expressive art, not post-theory art.

Is it Artist-Placed Public Document Art?

• Did the artist put a theory into a real-world public document, like a court filing or official report?

• Is the theory about a public issue (justice, equality, etc.)?

• Did people involved in the process (like judges or officials) respond emotionally or physically?

• Did some members of the public also have emotional or body reactions to it?

If yes to these, it’s likely artist-placed public document art, which is one form of post-theory art.

Was it made by a human or by AI?

• Was it generated with no human emotion, body experience, or lived context?

• Does it only make sense or function on a logical or surface level?

• Is there no trace of the artist’s own emotional or physical experience in the work?

If yes to these, it may be made by AI, or is missing the human part, and is not post-theory art.

If it carries a sense of lived feeling, personal experience, or emotional and body-based meaning, and if it causes head, heart, and body experiences in another human, it is post-theory art.

If the work invents something new, especially a new kind of idea or way of reaching people, it may be part of a new movement or category, like Post-Theory Art.

Early May 2025 — Some more thoughts and initial critiques of Post-Theory Art are here.

Late May 2025 — Some debates about Post-Theory Art are here.

Late May 2025 — Some more debates about broader questions, post-theory art, and artist-placed public document art:

1. What Is Justice?

The Broader Debate: Is justice universal and objective, or constructed and contingent?

Do Post-Theory Art and/or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• The argument that yes, they meaningfully explore this: Artist-placed public document art directly enters legal and governmental structures—not metaphorically, but procedurally. By doing so, it challenges the boundary between justice as concept and justice as institutional practice. When an artist invents a theory of justice and places it into a legal forum, it forces that system to at least respond. This is a rare moment where art enters the machinery of power, not just its aesthetics.

• The argument that no, they don’t: One could argue that the engagement is procedural but not philosophical. The institution’s forced response may be bureaucratic, not a true confrontation with the substance of justice. The document may be processed but not understood.

2. What Is Truth?

The Broader Debate: Is truth discovered, constructed, or always deferred, or something else?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Post-theory art problematizes the status of theory as a truth claim. It performs theory, sometimes in contradiction, sometimes in broken form. Artist-generated theories that are embodied in documents or installations resist the idea of truth as stable or final. They force audiences to consider whether truth can be made, rather than found.

• No: But this gesture is not new. Philosophy has long destabilized truth. If post-theory art only reenacts this destabilization in aesthetic form, it may be echo rather than innovation.

3. What Is a Human Being—What Does It Mean To Be Human?

The Broader Debate: Are we defined by reason, emotion, embodiment, or something else?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Both post-theory art and artist-placed public document art assert the uniqueness of human theory-making as a bodily, felt, and lived act. Especially in the age of artificial intelligence, these practices reassert the human as someone who not only thinks, but feels thought—who embodies idea. This claim becomes a resistance to disembodied computation.

• No: But this resistance may be nostalgic. AI can now simulate theory-making. The distinction between human and machine is blurred. Post-theory art may make an existential claim about the human that is increasingly unconvincing to those who believe machines can soon do everything we do, including “art.”

4. Is Language a Window or a Wall?

The Broader Debate: Does language reveal the world, or trap us within its limits?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Post-theory art uses language as its material. But it also breaks language—misspells it, overloads it, fragments it. Artist-placed public document art often exaggerates the formality of legal language, turning it into a poetic or absurd structure. These gestures stage language as both revelation and failure.

• No: Again, this is well-trodden terrain. Literary modernism and post-structuralist philosophy did this decades ago. The question is whether these artworks produce new forms of linguistic subversion, or simply aestheticize prior critiques.

5. Do Humans Have Free Will?

The Broader Debate: Are we agents of our actions, or determined by systems?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Artist-placed public document art stages this debate precisely by placing a document into a system that is required to respond. The artwork triggers a process, not because of its content, but because of its formal submission. This raises the question: Is the institution “free” to dismiss it? Is the artist “free” within legal systems?

• No: The systems may have no real choice but to comply procedurally. But if that response is mechanistic, is the artist really confronting anything human? Is this art merely pulling levers in a vast machine?

6. What Is Power?

The Broader Debate: Is power top-down, structural, or relational? Can it be aesthetic? Is it human or institutional?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Artist-placed public document art does not speak about power—it interacts with it directly. It enters systems that allocate rights, determine property, or settle disputes. In doing so, it reveals the texture and logic of power itself.

• No: However, symbolic entry into power structures does not necessarily redistribute power. If the institution processes the artwork without being changed by it, the action may be formally clever but substantively inert.

7. What Is Communication?

The Broader Debate: Is communication the transfer of meaning, or the recognition of shared being, or something else?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Post-theory art often forgoes clarity in favor of presence. Artist-placed public document art communicates not by being understood, but by insisting on being responded to. These practices ask: What happens when communication is compelled, not invited?

• No: Forced communication is not necessarily meaningful communication. A required response may be procedural, not relational. If the institution replies but does not relate, has communication occurred?

8. What Is Reality?

The Broader Debate: Is reality objective, or mediated through perception and systems?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: By intervening in legal and institutional systems that define reality (e.g., property ownership, legal status), artist-placed public document art reveals that what we call “real” is often procedural. Post-theory art also collapses the real and the conceptual, refusing to treat theory as mere abstraction.

• No: Yet if these interventions are legible only to insiders, they may reveal more about the limitations of art than the structures of reality. The rest of the world may continue to operate on an unchallenged, system-defined notion of the real.

9. Can Meaning Be Made, or Only Found?

The Broader Debate: Is meaning something we discover, or something we construct?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Post-theory art asserts that meaning is made by artists through theory-creation, not inherited from tradition or imposed from institutions. Artist-placed public document art reinforces this by treating meaning as something that enters the world through action.

• No: This position may be self-enclosed. If no one else finds meaning in the gesture, has meaning been made—or just claimed?

10. What Is The Essence Or Nature Of Public Institutions That Make Public Laws?

The Broader Debate: Is tangible change possible through institutional engagement?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Artist-placed public document art is a test case of this very question. It engages the institution formally, not as protest but as participant. The artwork does not remain outside critique—it becomes part of the system, altering its workflow.

• No: Critics argue that most systems are designed to absorb noise. Unless the work creates friction or disrupts decisions, it may be treated as anomaly, not subversion.

11. What Is the Role of the Artist in Society?

The Broader Debate: Is the artist a visionary, a mirror, a critic, or a worker, or something else?

Do Post-Theory Art or Artist-Placed Public Document Art meaningfully contribute to the broader debate?

• Yes: Post-theory art and artist-placed public document art reframe the artist as theorist, legal actor, public interest advocate, and epistemic agent. This reframes artistic labor as intellectual, procedural, and relational.

• No: If institutions do not recognize the artist in these expanded roles, does the shift remain purely internal to the art world? Can a new identity emerge without corresponding recognition?