Concept art - Definition and characteristics

The conceptual art It is one more artistic manifestation, belonging to the contemporary age, since its origin dates back to the mid-60s, emerging with him a new way of understanding art far removed from the traditional artistic principles to which we were accustomed. Next, in this lesson from a TEACHER we will discover the definition and characteristics of conceptual art so that you understand what is known as conceptual art, what is its origin, the means by which it is expressed with some more outstanding examples.

In the conceptual art the idea, concept, information that you have, more than the artistic realization itself. That is to say, the fundamental thing here is to give importance to the predominance of conceptual foundations more than to the purely formal, thus taking a somewhat abstract form.

In this way, conceptual art could be defined as a mode of expression that aims to obviate any optical impulse in favor of an intellectual process where the public is invited to share it with the artist.

The theme is as varied as you can find and with it what I know intends is to question, testify, criticize, explore, denounce a reality based on our political, economic or social environment, carry out a reflection based on the experiences or thoughts of the artist, that is, what he wants to tell us after observing a construction site.

In the vast majority they resort to satire, irony, or controversy seeking, as we have said previously, the reading and reflection of the artistic concept that we have before us.

One of the main goals for conceptual artists was the challenge of change and give other points of view in art other than the contemplation of beauty, the quality of the material with which it was made... completely questioning the true meaning of what until now was understood as art, since they defended the fact of making art without any need to be mediated by the observation of an object that was beautiful, a very subjective concept also since for what one can be something beautiful for others is everything contrary.

As we have mentioned previously, conceptual art was an artistic movement that took place in the mid-1960s as a claim that went against formalism.

Its origins, however, can well be traced between the years 1910 -1920 when the French artist and Dadaist Marcel Duchamp devised a new technique for artistic works and it was to show existing objects as they came from the factory (readymade), which without being artistic when chosen by an artist, was considered art.

And so it happened with one of the first best-known works of him "Fountain"That it was nothing more than a urinal that reoriented it 90º to his normal position and signed it as" R. Mutt ”. This was quite a revolution for the times that ran because nobody could fit in the head as a worldly object It could be art, just taking it out of its usual context and placing it in a new one, such as a gallery or museum.

One of the earliest artists and examples of conceptual art is the work of “One and three chairs”By Joseph Kosuth that he created in 1965 and consisted of a wooden folding chair, on one side, a photograph of the same chair and on the other side a photographic enlargement of the definition of the word chair taken from dictionary. With this, what was intended was to make the viewer reflect on in which of the three media the true identity of the object was found.

In 1961 the American artist Robert Rauschenberg sent a telegram to the Parisian gallery of Iris Clert in which he enclosed a self portrait with an inscription in which he said "this is a self portrait of Iris Clert because I say so"To be part of the self-portraits exhibition that was on display at that time.

It is true that today there are many works that make up this movement, but very few are important enough for them to be exhibited in a museum.