Conceptual Art- Art 110

Conceptual Art“Taste is the great enemy of art”

"Ideas alone can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical."

Why ‘conceptual’?

• A concept is an idea or thought, so the term conceptual art means literally ‘idea art’ – or art about ideas.

• Art is the which the idea of the work is more important than the work itself

Mel Bochner

•Their chief claim - that the articulation of an artistic idea suffices as a work of art – •So drastically simplified, it might seem to many people that what passes for Conceptual art is not in fact "art" at all•The fact that the idea behind the work of art is more important, means that the possibilities in the world of art are limitless

Conceptualism rejects ‘traditional’ forms of art- questioning what art can be!

•Conceptualism took myriad forms, such as performances, happenings, and ephemera.• From the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s Conceptual artists produced works and writings that completely rejected standard ideas of art.•Ex: hierarchy of art genres, subjects, aesthetics, expression, skill and marketability were all irrelevant standards by which art was usually judged.

What does conceptual art look like?

Conceptual art can be – and can look like – almost anything. This is because, unlike a painter or sculptor who will think about how best they can express their idea using paint or sculptural materials and techniques, a conceptual artist uses whatever materials and whatever form is most appropriate to putting their idea across – this could be anything from a performance to a written description. Although there is no one style or form used by conceptual artists, from the late 1960s certain trends emerged.

When, why and where did conceptual art happen?

The term conceptual art usually refers to an art movement that emerged in the mid 1960s and continued until the mid 1970s. It was an international art movement happening more or less simultaneously across Europe, North America and South America. Artists associated with the movement attempted to bypass the increasingly commercialized art world by stressing thought processes and methods of production as the value of the work. The art forms they used were often intentionally those that do not produce a finished object such as a sculpture or painting. This meant that their work could not be easily bought and sold and did not need to be viewed in a formal gallery situation. It was not just the structures of the art world that many conceptual artists questioned, there was often a strong socio-political dimension to much of the work they produced, reflecting wider dissatisfaction with society and government policies.

Origins and influence•Marcel Duchamp is often seen as an important forefather of conceptual art, and his readymade Fountain of 1917 cited as the first conceptual artwork.• Conceptual artists link their work to a tradition of Marcel Duchamp, whose Readymades had rattled the very definition of the work of art.• Like Duchamp before them, they abandoned beauty, rarity, and skill as measures of art.•For Conceptual artists, art need not look like a traditional work of art, or even take any physical form at all.•many Conceptual artists believe that if the artist began the artwork, the museum or gallery and the audience in some way completed it.

Marcel DuchampFountain 1917, replica 1964Porcelain

John Baldessari: Language as art•Many Conceptual artists used language in place of brush and canvas, and words played a primary role in their emphasis on ideas over visual forms. •“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”Yehuda Berg•It was a sad pencil that he revived. It was a moment of his own obsessive attention to detail that compelled him to revive it. It was subtle, but it was art.

Glenn Ligon. Untitled (If I Can't Have Love, I'll Take Sunshine), 2006. Neon and paint.35 x 144 inches

Quotations from literary sources and other textual statements have been a significant feature of Ligon's art; one of his aims, he says, is to "make language into a physical thing, something that has real weight and force to it".

Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965Wood folding chair, photo of a chair, and photographic enlargement of dictionary definition of chair

Joseph KosuthOne and Three Hammers1965• Kosuth has often explored the relationships between words and their meanings and how words relate to the objects and things they name or describe.• Kosuth has assembled an object, a photograph of that object, and an enlarged dictionary definition of the object.• It questions what actually constitutes a chair in our thinking: is it the solid object we see and use or is it the word "chair" that we use to identify it and communicate it to others?• Furthermore, it confronts us with how we use words to explain and define visible, tangible, ordinary things, how words represent, describe, or signify things, and how this often becomes more complex when the thing is simple, fundamental, or intangible. • Thus, it explores how language plays an integral role in conveying meaning and identity.• It makes us more aware of why and how words become the verbal and written equivalents for commonplace tangible, solid things and objects

Chris Burden 1946-2015

•Chris Burden has produced some of the most shocking works in the history of twentieth century American art, including spending five days and nights in the fetal position inside a locker, having a spectator push pins into his body, being "crucified" to a Volkswagen Beetle, being kicked down two flights of stairs, and even having himself shot. •The challenge for viewers is to try to understand such troubling and seemingly "inartistic" gestures. •the violent images of the war in Vietnam and the television media in general provided a background setting for Burden.• His work further challenges viewers to take stock of their own moral compasses and widen their understanding of the ways in which it is possible for art to serve humanity.

•Chris Burden's seemingly outrageous performances were in fact authentically intentioned. •His art explores the nature of suffering by setting up extreme situations that he, himself, has to endure.•Theoretically, a viewer can interrupt the work at any point, but usually they do not; thus, his work challenges viewers themselves to act - both within the sphere of his art and within the larger context of humanity in general.•The artist wanted to portray the reality of pain to the audience at a time when people had become desensitized to the plethora of television images of injured and dead American soldiers in Vietnam and the general dominance of violence in media imagery.•Burden also questioned the role of art itself.• Can art be more than something precious, elite, and distant? •To what extent can the artist be the work of art and how far can the artist go in leading viewers to think and respond?

Shoot 1971• Shoot is the piece for which Burden is infamously known. He asked a friend

to shoot him with a .22 rifle from a distance of 15 feet.• The bullet was originally supposed to nick the side of Burden's arm, but the

shooter was slightly off target and the bullet went through the arm instead.• This piece presented exactly what happens when a person is shot so that

the audience could experience it in person, and not just in a detached setting such as watching the television while sitting comfortably on the couch.

• The viewer can only recoil in shock at realizing that an actual person was just shot in front of them. In describing the piece, Burden stated that "it was really disgusting, and there was a smoking hole in my arm.”

• "I had an intuitive sense that being shot is as American as apple pie. We see people being shot on TV, we read about it in the newspaper. Everybody has wondered what it's like. So I did it."

• This work also poses questions about the nature of power and following orders, a theme especially indicated by the imperative of the title Shoot, itself. • To what extent are we required to follow orders? What are the

boundaries between rules and responsibility to fellow human beings? • Burden's work was also a way of re-sensitizing people to the violence

that had become less and less shocking due to its prevalence in the news.• Finally, in addition to challenging the art world's traditional

preference for the "fine art" of painting, for example, what Burden really seemed to be challenging was himself and his own dedication to his art.

Trans-Fixed (1974)• Trans-Fixed involved the literal transfixion of Burden to a Volkswagen via nails through the palms of

his hands.• After he was nailed to the car it was rolled out of a garage and displayed to an audience. • The engine was revved at full throttle to represent the sound of screaming in pain. • The parallels between the Crucifixion of Christ and Trans-Fixed are obvious.• Here again, Burden took the audience out of their comfort zone. • An image of the crucified Christ is commonplace in society and no one puts much thought into the

fact that many people were crucified in Roman times and it was an agonizing and lengthy way to die.• However, Burden reminded the audience of the reality of pain that we so often dismiss or do not

even notice. • The fact that the title is hyphenated into two words would seem to suggest that through (trans) the

work of art, society itself might somehow be fixed.• Furthermore, in some sense, it is the ultimate goal of art to transfix the viewer: to render motionless,

as with terror, amazement, or awe - all physical and emotional devices employed by Burden. In the end, however, the artist would like us to move beyond the state of transfixion and, instead, act

Through the Night Softly 1973• The action of the poetically and ironically titled Through the Night Softly consisted of Burden slithering across broken glass in his underwear with his hands bound behind his back. • This raw performance put the audience in discomfort by having to view the pain felt by Burden as shards of glass shredded the bloodied front of his body. • Burden wanted it to be clear to the viewers how real pain is, and emphasized this by performing live so that the audience had to experience it in person. • In contrast to the use of commercials to advertise for upcoming events, Burden purchased late night commercial spots on a local television station, running a ten-second clip of this piece so viewers would get to see it in the detached setting of their homes, thus placing the artwork on the level of our increasingly detached reception of horrific events