Editing Conceptual art (section)

{{short description|Art movement}}
{{distinguish|concept art|philosophical conceptualism}}
[[File:Marcel Duchamp, 1917, Fountain, photograph by Alfred Stieglitz.jpg|thumb|260px|[[Marcel Duchamp]], ''[[Fountain (Duchamp)|Fountain]],'' 1917. Photograph by [[Alfred Stieglitz]]]]
[[Image:Iris Clert Portrait Rauschenberg.jpg|thumb|260px|[[Robert Rauschenberg]], ''Portrait of [[Iris Clert]]'' 1961]]
[[File:Art-LanguageV3No1-1974.jpg|thumb|260px|[[Art & Language]], ''[[Art-Language]]'' Vol. 3 Nr. 1, 1974]]
'''Conceptual art''', also referred to as '''conceptualism''', is [[art]] in which the [[concept]](s) or [[idea]](s) involved in the work are prioritized equally to or more than traditional [[Aesthetics|aesthetic]], technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.franklinfurnace.org/history/flow/lewitt/lewitt.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070302213039/http://www.franklinfurnace.org/history/flow/lewitt/lewitt.html |title=Wall Drawing 811 – Sol LeWitt |archive-date=2 March 2007 }}</ref> This method was fundamental to American artist [[Sol LeWitt]]'s definition of conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:

{{blockquote|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 of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.<ref>[[Sol LeWitt]] "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art", ''Artforum'', June 1967.</ref>}}

Tony Godfrey, author of ''Conceptual Art (Art & Ideas)'' (1998), asserts that conceptual art questions the nature of art,<ref>{{cite book |title=Conceptual Art (Art & Ideas) |author=Godrey, Tony |year=1988 |isbn= 978-0-7148-3388-0 |publisher=London: Phaidon Press Ltd}}</ref> a notion that [[Joseph Kosuth]] elevated to a definition of art itself in his seminal, early manifesto of conceptual art, ''Art after Philosophy'' (1969). The notion that art should examine its own nature was already a potent aspect of the influential art critic [[Clement Greenberg]]'s vision of Modern art during the 1950s. With the emergence of an exclusively language-based art in the 1960s, however, conceptual artists such as [[Art & Language]], Joseph Kosuth (who became the American editor of [[Art-Language The Journal of conceptual art|Art-Language]]), and [[Lawrence Weiner]] began a far more radical interrogation of art than was previously possible (see [[#Language and/as art|below]]). One of the first and most important things they questioned was the common assumption that the role of the artist was to create special kinds of [[physical art|material objects]].<ref>Joseph Kosuth, ''Art After Philosophy'' (1969). Reprinted in Peter Osborne, ''Conceptual Art: Themes and Movements'', Phaidon, London, 2002. p. 232</ref><ref>Art & Language, [[Art-Language The Journal of conceptual art]]: Introduction (1969). Reprinted in Osborne (2002) p. 230</ref><ref>Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden: "Notes On Analysis" (1970). Reprinted in Osborne (2003), p. 237. E.g. "The outcome of much of the 'conceptual' work of the past two years has been to carefully clear the air of objects."</ref>
 
Through its association with the [[Young British Artists]] and the [[Turner Prize]] during the 1990s, in popular usage, particularly in the United Kingdom, "conceptual art" came to denote all [[contemporary art]] that does not practice the traditional skills of [[painting]] and [[sculpture]].<ref name=tateconceptual>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20041211013930/http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history/issue_conceptual.htm Turner Prize history: Conceptual art]". Tate Gallery. tate.org.uk. Accessed August 8, 2006</ref> One of the reasons why the term "conceptual art" has come to be associated with various contemporary practices far removed from its original aims and forms lies in the problem of defining the term itself. As the artist [[Mel Bochner]] suggested as early as 1970, in explaining why he does not like the epithet "conceptual", it is not always entirely clear what "concept" refers to, and it runs the risk of being confused with "intention". Thus, in describing or defining a [[work of art]] as conceptual it is important not to confuse what is referred to as "conceptual" with an artist's "intention".