Conceptual art

Conceptual art is a term that came into use in the late 1960s to describe a broad range of practices in which the concept or idea behind a work is elevated above traditional aesthetic and material concerns. In the words of one of the movement's theorists, Sol LeWitt, the idea becomes a machine that makes the art: the plan, intention or instruction may matter more than the final physical object, and sometimes the object is absent altogether. Conceptual art called into question the fundamental notions of authorship, craftsmanship, uniqueness and the commodity status of the artwork. It took the form of texts, instructions, documentation, photographs, diagrams and actions. A landmark is Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs (1965), which juxtaposes a real chair, its photograph and a dictionary definition, exploring the nature of representation. Among its influential figures are Sol LeWitt, Joseph Kosuth, the group Art & Language, Lawrence Weiner and Yoko Ono. The movement's roots reach back to the readymades of Marcel Duchamp in the early twentieth century. Conceptualism fundamentally changed ideas of what art can be and remains a foundation for much contemporary practice.