Conceptual Art
July 2, 2008
Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions.[1] This method was fundamental to LeWitt’s definition of Conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:
| “ | 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. – Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art”, Artforum, June 1967. | ” |
For the layperson, this quotation highlights a key difference between a conceptualist installation and a traditional work of art – that the conceptualist’s work may require little or no physical craftsmanship in its execution, whereas traditional art is distinguished by requiring physical skill and the making of aesthetic choices. As Tony Godfrey has put it, after Joseph Kosuth’s definition of art, conceptual art is an art which questions the very nature of what is understood as art.
