"The idea is the machine that makes the art" - Sol LeWitt

Key decade: 1970s

Terms: Conceptual Art

1. Conceptual Art - late 1960s New York, peak in 1970s, still evident today
   1. Roots and precursors
      1. Minimalism and Pop ironies (Stella, Warhol)
      2. Fluxus attitudes (George Brecht)
      3. transcendental signifiers (Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni)
      4. above all, the growing influence of Duchamp
   2. Practitioners from various places (centered on New York, satellite in Coventry)
      1. Robert Morris 61-63 (later Minimal and Performance artist)
      2. Joseph Kosuth '65-66+ (important writer/theorist, emphasized Duchamp readymades)
      3. Sol LeWitt '66-67+ (crucial formulator of "Sentences" '69 and "Paragraphs" '67 on Conceptual Art)
      4. On Kawara '66+ (b. Japan, in close dialogue with LeWitt, postcards/ calendar boxes)
      5. Douglas Heubler ca. '70 (time-based)
      6. Pop-inflected stand-alone Richard Artschwager, '63+
      7. Art & Language, Coventry U.K. '68+ (Terry Atkinson et al.)
   3. Main characteristics of Conceptual Art
      1. Idea-based (form is incidental)
      2. anti-heroic and impersonal stance of artist (bureaucratic?)
      3. impersonal execution (if at all), often industrial, often delegated
      4. Language a crucial component
      5. "The work can be made. The work does not have to be made to be art." (LeWitt)
2. California variants
   1. Practitioners
      1. Bruce Nauman (studied in Davis California)
      2. John Baldessari (teaches still in Los Angeles)
      3. Edward Ruscha (in L.A.)
   2. Characteristics
      1. Typically funnier, "dopier," more deadpan than New York
      2. More interested in engaging Pop as a way art can look

Slide List

prime precursor: Duchamp Fountain 1917, With Hidden Noise 1916, Air de Paris 1919, Monte Carlo Bond 1924

added impetus from: Stella black painting 1958, Warhol Campbells Soup Cans 1962, Klein monochromes 1960, George Brecht Chair Event 1960, Brecht, Three Aqueous Events 1961

Manzoni Achrome 1958
Manzoni Socle du Monde (Base of the World) 1961
Morris Litanies 196x (important, on web: Card File '63, Box with the Sound of its own making, '61, Fountain '63, Three Rulers '63)
Kosuth One and Three Chairs '65
LeWitt wall drawings 1968 to the present
Heubler Duration Piece 1970
Artschwager Table with Pink Tablecloth 1964
Artschwager 100 Locations 1968
Artschwager Portrait I 1962
Nauman Portrait of the Artist as a Fountain 1966-60
Nauman My Last Name Exaggerated 14 Times Vertically 1967
Nauman From Hand to Mouth 1967
Nauman Acoustic Wall, 1969, and Wilder Gallery Installation 1970
Nauman One Hundred Live and Die 1984
Baldessari Cremation Project 1970
Baldessari An Artist is not Merely a Slavish Announcer 1966
Ruscha Wax 1970
Ruscha Metal Shavings 1974
Ruscha Every Building on the Sunset Strip 1966
Ruscha Not a Bad World, Is It? 1984

Robert Morris, Box with Sound..., 1961

Even before Minimal Art got its name, it was troubling the notion of the work of art as an object that somehow "contains" its own inherent meaning. How did Robert Morris's sculpture comment on the obsession with Process emerging out of Abstract Expressionism?

Robert Morris, Fountain, 1963
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917
Robert Morris, Card File, 1963
Robert Morris, Three Rulers, 1963

Duchamp emerged as an increasingly important figure as artists such as Morris began to investigate the meanings that were created for the work of art in the mind of the viewer. Find another work on today's "page" that harkens after Duchamp.

Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965
Manzoni, Socle du Monde (Base of the World), 1961

Language philosophies and the power of "naming" became important preoccupations for Conceptual artists. Even Manzoni, not affiliated with this group and working out of Italy, evinced a parallel interest in language's ability to force a new concept on an object.

LeWitt, Wall Drawing/Vertical & Two Diagonal Lines, 1968
On Kawara, Date Paintings in 89 Cities: 18 Feb 1973 Casablanca, 1973

LeWitt declared "I wanted to do a work of art that was as two-dimensional as possible." and also: "The wall drawing is a permanent installation, until destroyed." (1970) Like LeWitt, Kawara generated a simple idea that is profoundly influenced by the circumstances in which it is deployed.

Nauman, Self-Portrait as a Fountain, 1966
Nauman, From Hand to Mouth, 1967

Nauman's photographs and sculptures pose interesting problems for the viewer: are they documents of performances? Are they "works of art in themselves?" Nauman's persistent interest in puns and irony places his work well within the California tradition (Arneson was one of his teachers.)

Baldessari, An Artist is not Merely a Slavish Announcer, 1966
Artschwager, Portrait I, 1962
Ruscha, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966

These artists began to integrate some of Pop art's banal photography and simulations into witty Conceptual projects like these. While not found exclusively on the West Coast (Artschwager was in New York), such works benefitted from California's "distanced" view of the super-theoretical New York art scene.