Overview

“Art is not about what you see; it’s about what you think.” In the 1960s, artists like Sol LeWitt and Joseph Kosuth decided that painting and sculpture were dead. They were just “objects” for rich people to buy. They wanted to make art that was pure thought. They used text, diagrams, and instructions. If you have the idea for the art, you don’t even need to make it. The idea is the art.

Core Idea

The core idea is Dematerialization. Art doesn’t need a physical body. It can be a sentence written on a wall. It can be a certificate. It can be a rumor. By removing the object, they removed the “commodity” status of art (you can’t sell a thought… easily) and focused on the linguistic definition of what art is.

Formal Definition

Art in which the idea presented by the artist is considered more important than the finished product, if any such product exists.

Intuition

Imagine a composer writing a symphony. The “art” is the music in their head and on the sheet music. The orchestra playing it is just the execution. Conceptual artists say: “Why do we need the orchestra? The sheet music is enough.” Or even: “Why do we need the sheet music? Just the description of the music is enough.”

Examples

  • Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs (1965): A real chair, a photo of that chair, and a dictionary definition of the word “chair.” It asks: Which one is the “real” chair? The object, the image, or the idea? It is philosophy in a gallery.
  • Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawings: LeWitt didn’t draw them himself. He wrote instructions (e.g., “Draw 10,000 straight lines of random length”). Anyone could follow them and create the art. The art is the algorithm, not the drawing.
  • John Baldessari: He burned all his paintings and baked the ashes into cookies. The act of destruction was the new art.

Common Misconceptions

  • It’s lazy: “They just wrote a sentence on a wall!” Yes, but coming up with that specific sentence that challenges the history of art took years of thought. It’s intellectual labor, not manual labor.
  • It’s a scam: It feels like the “Emperor’s New Clothes.” But it forces you to question why you value art. Do you value the craft? Or the creativity?
  • Duchamp’s Readymades: The grandfather of conceptual art. He proved that choice = art.
  • Institutional Critique: Artists (like Hans Haacke) who used conceptual art to expose the corruption of museums (e.g., showing the financial ties between trustees and slumlords).
  • Fluxus: A related movement focused on humor, performance, and “event scores” (simple instructions like “Draw a straight line and follow it”).

Applications

  • Software: Coding is conceptual art. It is pure text that creates a world. Sol LeWitt’s instructions are basically computer programs executed by humans.
  • Advertising: Modern “viral marketing” often uses conceptual stunts rather than traditional ads.

Criticism / Limitations

  • Boring: Let’s be honest—reading text on a gallery wall can be dry. It lacks the visceral pleasure of color and texture. “Visual art” without visuals is a hard sell.
  • Elitist: It requires a PhD in philosophy to understand some of the jokes. It excludes the general public more than any other style.

Further Reading

  • LeWitt, Sol. “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art”. 1967.
  • Lippard, Lucy. Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object. 1973.
  • Godfrey, Tony. Conceptual Art. 1998.