An interesting compostition by Louise Lawler
"Can art be created or perceived when it is no longer bound to an aesthetic object?"-Daniel Marzona
What is conceptual art?
Where did it come from?
Concept art, or conceptual art (as it began to be called since 1967) is art which broke the mould of classic, perfect 'what you see is what you get', art.
It is abstract, emotional but most of all thought provoking.
A more modern form of conceptual art by Jenny Holzer
"In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work... all planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes the machine that makes the art."
Sol Lewitt
Conceptual art started appearing in America in 1961.
The term conceptual art became more popular and recognised due to Sol Lewitt's (artist) essay titled 'Paragraph's on Conceptual Art' (1967).
In 1969, the English Artists group 'Art & Language', published the first ever 'Journal of Conceptual Art'. Which was a part of their magazine 'Art-Language'.
A copy of Art-Language, which brought alot of awareness to conceptual art
Conceptual art however did have negativity surrounding it, classic artists and photographers were insulted by the simplicity and lack of detail to the art.
"Conceptual art has often been described as a theoretically top-heavy, over-intellectual art form".-DanielMarzona
Cindy Sherman's artwork, she quite often uses obscure, strange mannequins as subject matter
In 1969 a young conceptual artist, Joseph Kosuth stated "All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually".
So where did it begin?
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I believe conceptual art was created from cubism and modern art.
Cubism, after all, was the beginning of abstract and thought provoking art.
Modern art began with Edouard Manet's (1832-1883) and Paul Cezanne's (1839-1906) work, where their work started taking on more abstract approaches.
One of Paul Cezanne's cubism paintings
This is said to be because of the evolving world of art- better technology and photography.
This created pressure on artists to create absolutely picture perfect paintings.
Because of this, modern and abstract art was created. It was a step away from the classic perspective of Renaissance art, and a step towards conceptual art.
"Conceptual Art can only be understood against the background of a period in which the radical change in art and society was still a real possibility for a young generation".-Daniel Marzona
To further this step towards a change in art, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Fernard Leger (1881-1955) introduced 'Cubism'.
One of Cubist artist Pablo Picasso's more famous paintings
They believed the expanding common photographs and paintings lacked emotion and ideas, so they gave up any naturalism of depiction of art.
"What they wanted to paint was no longer a reproduction, but the image of an autonomous reality".
In 1915, the famous French Cubist Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935) was the first artist to have an exhibition which displayed artwork that "lacked any reference in the external world". In his exhibition was his famous 'Black Square' painting on display.
Kasimir Malevich's famous 'Black Square'
It was the beginning of new art.
Art that was stepping towards experimental, conceptual art.
Art no longer had to be about relationships of literature, religion and philosophy.
Art now began to about the form, in which emotional, spiritual, or expressive content was to be fulfilled.
"It's the viewers which make the pictures."-Macel Duchamp
The development of this eventually would lead to conceptual art.
A few famous conceptual artists are:
What's your view on conceptual art?
Do you think it's ruined the naturalist form of art?
Or do you think it's a breakthrough from the mediocre, tired classic art?
OR even better still, what do YOU know about conceptual art??
Reference:
Marzona, Daniel (2005), Conceptual Art, America, Taschen
I posted an article about Cubism as well, just the introduction of Cubism, no judgements.
ReplyDeleteI find it's a specially distinctive style, encourages our curiosity.
Conceptual art is inspired, imaginative. If there are 100 different viewers look at the painting, there may be 100 different kinds of ideas, concepts.
what ideas did you come up with when you look at them?
That's a really interesting, and great, way to look at it.
ReplyDeleteI've never really thought about how much variation you would get from different people's perception.
I think conceptual art really explores and grasps this idea of different views.
What's your opinion on Cubism?
Can you see the relationship between Cubism and Conceptual Art?