Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the idea or concept is the work and the physical object, if there is one, is secondary: instructions, text, photographs, documents or actions; it emerged in the mid-1960s and has shaped most contemporary art since.
Its ancestor is Marcel Duchamp, who argued that art was a matter of choosing rather than making, and its first signs in Europe were Yves Klein's The Void of 1958, an empty gallery, and Piero Manzoni's lines, breaths and cans of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Sol LeWitt gave it its classic definition in 'Paragraphs on Conceptual Art' in 1967, where 'the idea becomes a machine that makes the art'. Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs, a chair, a photograph of it and a dictionary definition, had posed the question directly in 1965.
By the late 1960s it was international. In the United States Lawrence Weiner, Mel Bochner and On Kawara in New York, and John Baldessari in California, worked with language, photography and systems. In Germany Joseph Beuys extended art into teaching, politics and what he called social sculpture, culminating in 7000 Oaks, planted in Kassel from 1982. In Belgium Marcel Broodthaers made the museum itself his subject; in Britain Gilbert & George presented themselves as living sculpture from 1969, and Michael Craig-Martin's An Oak Tree of 1973 is a glass of water on a shelf with a text asserting that it is an oak tree. In Poland Roman Opałka began, in 1965, a single project of painting numbers in sequence towards infinity. The generation of the 1980s, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine and Richard Prince, carried its methods into language and the appropriation of images from advertising and the media.
At a glance
- When
- mid-1960s to the 1970s, and after
- Where
- New York, Europe and worldwide
- Leading artists
- Sol LeWitt, John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers
Characteristics of conceptual art
- Idea over object
- The concept is the work, and the making can be delegated.
- Language
- Text, instructions and definitions used as material.
- Documentation
- Photographs, maps, certificates and records standing for the work.
- Dematerialisation
- Work that may be ephemeral, performed, or never made at all.
- Questioning institutions
- The museum, the market and authorship as subjects in themselves.
Conceptual artists
Every artist below has a page on this site, with a short biography and what a valuation of their work turns on.
Conceptual artists
- Sol LeWittWrote instructions for wall drawings and let other people execute them, for forty years.
- John BaldessariBurned his own paintings, then spent forty years putting coloured dots over people's faces.
- Joseph BeuysFelt, fat, a Luftwaffe crash he may have invented, and the claim that everyone is an artist.
- Marcel BroodthaersA poet until he was forty, then the man who opened a museum that did not exist.
- Mel BochnerPut measurement, counting and the thesaurus on the wall, and made language look like paint.
- Roman OpałkaPainted the numbers from one towards infinity for forty-six years, photographing his own face at the end of every session.
- Michael Craig-MartinSaid a glass of water was an oak tree, then drew everyday objects in flat line and hot colour.
- Gilbert & GeorgeTwo artists making one body of work: first themselves as living sculpture, then vast gridded pictures of London's East End.
Forerunners
Language and appropriation
- Jenny HolzerPuts language in public — on posters, LED signs, stone benches and buildings — and lets it argue with the passer-by.
- Barbara KrugerFutura Bold Oblique, white on red, over a found photograph, saying something you cannot argue with.
- Sherrie LevineRephotographed Walker Evans, put her own name to the result, and made authorship itself the subject.
- Richard PrinceRephotographed the Marlboro cowboy, retyped other people's jokes, and has been sued over most of it.
- SturtevantMade close repetitions of other artists' work, often before they were famous, and called it her own.
- Felix Gonzalez-TorresMade art from stacks of paper, spills of sweets and strings of lights that visitors may take from.
Famous Conceptual works
- One and Three ChairsJoseph Kosuth, 1965, Museum of Modern Art, New York
- An Oak TreeMichael Craig-Martin, 1973
- 7000 OaksJoseph Beuys, 1982–87, Kassel
- Untitled (Your body is a battleground)Barbara Kruger, 1989, The Broad, Los Angeles
- Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1991, Art Institute of Chicago
What a valuation turns on
Conceptual art tests the idea of an original. A work may exist as a certificate, a set of instructions, a typed sheet or a photograph, and what is sold is often the right to it, documented on paper, rather than an object. For LeWitt's wall drawings and Gonzalez-Torres's candy spills and paper stacks, the certificate is the work in market terms, and a lost certificate is a serious problem.
Much of what comes to market is editions and multiples. Beuys made hundreds of them, felt postcards, objects in wooden boxes, printed matter, to spread his ideas, and they are collected and catalogued, Jörg Schellmann's catalogue of the multiples being the reference. Baldessari's prints, Holzer's and Kruger's editions and LeWitt's prints are similar, and the edition, signature and condition decide their value.
Common questions
What is conceptual art?
Conceptual art is art in which the idea is the most important part of the work, and the physical object, if there is one, is secondary. It may take the form of instructions, text, photographs, documents or actions, and emerged as a movement in the mid-1960s.
Who are famous conceptual artists?
Sol LeWitt, Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner, John Baldessari, On Kawara, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Art & Language and Michael Craig-Martin, with Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni as forerunners, and Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger after them.
When did conceptual art begin?
Its roots go back to Duchamp's readymades of the 1910s, but it emerged as a movement in the mid-1960s, and Sol LeWitt's 'Paragraphs on Conceptual Art' of 1967 gave it its name and definition.
What is the difference between conceptual art and Minimalism?
Minimalism concentrates on the physical object and its presence. Conceptual art, which grew partly out of it, treats the idea as the work, so the object can be a document, an instruction or nothing at all.
How do I sell a conceptual artwork or a Beuys multiple?
Send photographs of the work, the certificate and any paperwork for a free, confidential valuation. With conceptual works the certificate is often what is being sold; with multiples we check the edition against the catalogue. We then compare a confidential private sale with auction.
