Conceptual art, sometimes called idea art, is art in which the ideas embodied by a piece are more central to the work than the means used to create it. It was described by the artist Sol LeWitt like so:

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.

Conceptual art as a movement emerged during the mid-1960s, in part as a reaction against formalism as it was then articulated by the influential New York art critic Clement Greenberg. However, the work of the French artist Marcel Duchamp from the 1910s and 1920s paved the way for the Conceptualists, providing them with examples of prototypically Conceptual works (the readymades, for instance) that defied categorisation and could not be said to be art by virtue of their specific visual properties alone.

Many artists turned to conceptualism because of a belief that creating commercially marketable works was in some way unethical.

Conceptual art often makes use of materials such as photographs, maps, and videos. It is sometimes reduced to a set of instructions documenting how to make a work, but stopping short of actually making it--the idea behind the art is more important than the artefact itself.

Out of this concept artforms like fluxus and mail art have emerged.

Conceptual artists

• Art & Language
• John Hilliard
• Douglas Huebler
• Joseph Kosuth
• Lawrence Weiner
• Robert Barry
• Mel Bochner
• Adrian Piper
• Ian Burn
• Hans Haacke
• Hanne Darboven
• Dan Graham
• Daniel Buren
• Henry Flynt
• Damien Hirst
• Tracy Emin
• Sarah Lucas
• Bill Barker

See also

• Visual arts and design
• Modern art
• Contemporary art
• Installation art
• Video art

External links

• Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/Stu/kswenson/lewitt.htm