CONCEPTUAL ART: WHAT IS IT?

I-The Concept in Conceptual Art, Origins & High Noon 1960-1970s

A-Conceptual Art is the Prioritization of the Idea over the Object in a Work of Art
B-It reached both its apogee and its crisis in the years 1966-1972
C-The term came into general use in 1967 (Sol LeWitt)
D-Some form of Conceptual Art has existed throughout the 20th century (Duchamp)
E-Almost all art since the 1970s has or claims to have a Conceptual component
F-In prior great art the Object and/or the Process is prioritized over the Idea

Origins:

A-Duchamp’s invention of the Readymade, 1913 (Bicycle Wheel), 1917 (Fountain)

B-No More Retinal Art: the mind of the viewer completes the work, e.g. Magritte, 1929
C-Rauschenberg, Johns and especially 1960s Minimalism and Land Art:
Judd’s phoned-in fabrication, Flavin’s readymade tubes, LeWitt’s wall drawings,
photographic documentation of un-seeable, un-saleable, Earthworks & performances
D-European sources: Joseph Beuys, Manzoni, Yves Klein, Arte Povera
E-Readymade, photodocument & words, Joseph Kosuth, 1965 (One & Three Chairs)
F-“The Idea Becomes a Machine That Makes the Art,” Sol LeWitt, 1967
G-The Dematerialization of the Art Object, 1966-1972, Lucy Lippard

How to Recognize a Conceptual Work of Art:

A-Readymade: repurposed object from the outside world; no uniqueness or artist’s hand
B-an Intervention: image, text or thing placed in an Unexpected Context
C-use of Documentation (usually photography)
D-use of Words: the concept, proposition or investigation is presented as language

Language & Conceptual Art:

A-Seth Siegelaub: dealer, curator, activist, inventor of the Xerox book (1968)
B-his artists: Andre, Barry, Huebler, Kosuth, LeWitt, Morris, Weiner
C-Lawrence Weiner’s “Statement of Intent,” 1968 (first printed in “Attitudes”)
D-exposure of group in Harald Szeemann’s “When Attitudes Become Form,” Bern, 1969
E-Kosuth “Art After Philosophy,” replaces the viewer with a reader, 1969
F-Art & Language group in England, 1967- now; Journal of Conceptual Art, 1969

Michael Salcman, M.D.

March 8, 2017
 FAMOUS DEFINITIONS of CONCEPTUAL ART

Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He
CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance
disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that
object.”—Marcel Duchamp, The Blind Man, v.2, 1917

The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in
contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications
and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.—Marcel Duchamp, 1955

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an
artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all the planning and decisions are made
beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that
makes the art.—Sol LeWitt, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, Artforum, June 1967

STATEMENT OF INTENT (1968)

1. The artist may construct the piece.

2. The piece may be fabricated.
3. The piece need not be built.

Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist the decision as to condition
rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership.

(first printed for Attitudes, Bern 1969)—Lawrence Weiner

“The ‘purest’ definition of conceptual art would be that it is inquiry into the foundations
of the concept of ‘art’, as it has come to mean.”—Joseph Kosuth, Art After Philosophy,
1969 in Studio International

Conceptual art, for me, means work in which the idea is paramount and the material is
secondary, lightweight, ephemeral, cheap, unpretentious, and/or dematerialized.
—Lucy Lippard, Reconsidering the Object of Art: 1965-1975, 1995

Conceptual Art, simply put, had as its basic tenet an understanding that artists work with
meaning, not with shapes, colors, or materials—Joseph Kosuth, 1996
 REFERENCES

Walter Benjamin, THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL

REPRODUCTION, 1935

Claire Bishop, Benjamin Buchloh, Germano Celant, Miuccia Prada et al.: WHEN
ATTITUDES BECOME FORM: Bern 1969/Venice 2013, Fondazione Prada, Venice,
2013

Arthur C. Danto: WHAT ART IS, Yale, New Haven, 2013

Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yves-Alain Bois & Benjamin H.D. Buchloh: ART SINCE
1900, Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, Thames & Hudson, New York, 2004

Tony Godfrey: CONCEPTUAL ART, Phaidon, London, 1998

Lucy R. Lippard: SIX YEARS: THE DEMATERIALIZATION OF THE ART OBJECT

FROM 1966-1972, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997 (1973)

Arthur P. Shimamura: EXPERIENCING ART, In the Brain of the Beholder, Oxford,

2013

Roger White: THE CONTEMPORARIES, Travels in the 21st Century Art World,
Bloomsbury, New York, 2015