A Postmodern beginning: Conceptual Art movement

proper as critique of art-as-object

Sol Lewitt, Installation at Paula Cooper Gallery, October 10-

31, 1980s, Conceptual, A Postmodern beginning

Lewitt says his art is, which he terms “conceptual,” is “„made to engage

the mind of the viewer rather than his eye or emotions‟”; the conceptual

“„making art that doesn‟t have an object as a residue‟” (Sandler, 70)

The Conceptual movement proper in post-1965 art emerged

from the confluence of two major legacies of modernism:

1. the strain of modernism, which I termed “conceptualism,” embodied in

the readymade notion of art as self-definition that emerged out of Dada

and was picked up by Fluxus performance art, Happenings and Pop

art; “as a continuation of the central thrust in Duchamp‟s art and

thinking. Duchamp had said that in introducing mass-produced

readymades into an art context, he had added a new idea to the

ordinary artifact.” (Sandler, 70)

2. the strain of modernism, which I termed “formalism,” embodied in

Minimalism and geometric abstraction that emerged out of the

reduction to the literal or physical nature of the support; “the bracketing

out of the conceptual component of minimal art” (Sandler, 70)

Conceptual art can then be viewed as the “dematerialization”

of a minimal object or a readymade, taking either back to

the original idea that generated it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4cgB4vJ2XY

Sol Lewitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective

Instructions for the wall drawing from the artist,

“anyone can do it”! Incorporates some chance;

each time the drawing is installed its slightly

different based on who is doing it and their slightly

different interpretation.

This text also appears as wall drawing label near

drawing when installed.

John Baldessari, An Artist Is Not

Merely the Slavish Announcer,

1960s, Conceptual, A Postmodern

beginning

John Baldessari, Commissioned

Painting: A Painting by George

Walker, 1960s, Conceptual, A

Postmodern beginning

In 1968 Baldessari presented an exhibition of word

paintings, made up of canvases with statements about art

painted on them.

John Baldessari, A Painting That is its

Own Documentation, 1960s,

Conceptual, A Postmodern beginning

John Baldessari, Everything is Purged

from This Painting, 1960s, Conceptual,

A Postmodern beginning

John Baldessari, "Ingres" from Ingres and Other Parables,

1970, photograph and text, Conceptual art, Postmodern

beginning

Conceptual movement proper, can be viewed through the

lens of the “moral” of this work‟s story…. “If you have the

idea in your head, the work is as good as done”

Sol Lewitt, Sentences on Conceptual Art, first published 1969, A

Postmodern beginning

1. Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic

cannot reach.

2. Rational judgments repeat rational judgments.

3. Irrational judgments lead to new experience.

4. Formal art is essentially rational.

5. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.

6. If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the

result and repeats past results.

7. The artist's will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. His willfulness

may only be ego.

8. When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and

imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would

be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations.

….

35. These sentences comment on art, but are not art.John Baldessari, John Baldessari Sings Sol Lewitt, 1970s

Conceptual Performance art, Postmodern beginning

John Baldessari, Cremation Piece, 1970s,

cookies baked with ashes of his paintings

executed before 1966, Conceptual, A

Postmodern beginning

Conceptual Art movement proper recap- art as idea rather than art as

object, reducing art not to just essential visual elements and formal

properties but to ideas; sometimes conceptual art is made in response to

the materialism and commodification of the art market, sometimes to

highlight that art begins as an idea in the artist‟s mind, and sometimes to

set up a problem and answer it using form and image

This movement is indebted to Duchamp and Dada, especially Duchamp‟s works like

L.H.O.O.Q.; the work is about the idea of the Mona Lisa, what it represents in

Western culture, and about challenging or playing with that idea in the form of

doodling on its reproduction and titling it a pun, L.H.O.O.Q.- when pronounced it

forms a sentence that is a vulgar slang phrase.

This movement is also indebted to Minimalism, as per Lewitt‟s Postminimalist

conceptualism.

Duchamp, Fountain, Dada, Modernism

(conceptual strain)

Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., Dada,

Modernism (conceptual strain)

Lewitt‟s conceptualism emerges out of form-

shape, line, color etc.- vs. Duchamp‟s

conceptualism, his wordplays, puns and ironies

Mondrian, Composition in Red and Blue, De

Stijl, Modernism (conceptual strain)

Robert Morris, Untitled (L-Beams), 1960s,

Minimalism, Modernism straddles Postmodernism

But Lewitt and Duchamp, and Baldessari, challenge art-as-

autonomous object and art-as-commodification- that art is

only created through the originality of the individual

author/artist genius thus critiquing modernism‟s formalist

values.

Then move art away from art-as-object and towards art-as-

experience, where subject becomes object!