 Search Britannica...

 Subscribe Now Login 

Home Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture Money Videos

conceptual art  Home  Visual Arts  Installation & Performance Art

T able of Contents conceptual art

Introduction
 Print  Cite  Share  Feedback 
References & Edit History

Quick Facts & Related Topics Also known as: art-as-idea, post-object art
Written by Lisa S. Wainwright
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Read Next Article History

13 Artists Who Died Conceptual art, artwork whose medium is an

Untimely Deaths Also called: post-object art or art-as-
idea (or a concept), usually manipulated by the idea
tools of language and sometimes documented by Key People: Yoko Ono • Lawrence
Discover
photography. Its concerns are idea-based rather Weiner • Francis Alÿs • Eduardo Kac •
Why Is Missouri Called Felix Gonzalez-Torres
the Show Me State? than formal.
Related Topics: art
Timeline of the 1990s
Conceptual art is typically associated with a
number of American artists of the 1960s and ’70s See all related content →
Secret Service Code
Names of 11 U.S. —including Sol LeWitt, Joseph Kosuth,
Presidents
Lawrence Weiner, Robert Barry, Mel Bochner,
7 Deadliest Weapons in
History and John Baldessari—and in Europe with the English group Art & Language
(composed of Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, David Bainbridge, and Harold
New Seven Wonders of
the World Hurrell), Richard Long (English), Jan Dibbets (Dutch), and Daniel Buren (French),
Does Ball Lightning Exist? among others. Conceptual art was first so named in 1961 by the American theorist and
composer Henry Flynt and described in his essay “Concept Art” (1963). The term had
Why Is Pride Month
C l b t di J ?
international currency by 1967 when LeWitt published his influential “Sentences on
Conceptual Art.” By the mid-1970s conceptual art had become a widely accepted
approach in Western visual art. Despite the resurgence of “traditional” image-based
work in the 1980s, conceptual art has been described as one of the most influential
movements of the late 20th century, a logical extension of the work begun by the
French artist Marcel Duchamp in 1914 to break the primacy of the perceptual in art.
Along with its critique of the visual, conceptual art involved a redefinition of the
traditional relationship between artist and audience, empowering artists and enabling
them to operate both inside and outside the gallery system.

Other fields of study—such as philosophy, literary theory, and social science—played a

major role in the experience of conceptual art. A variety of projects, proposals, and
exhibitions were circulated in publications—including catalogs, artists’ books,
pamphlets, posters, postcards, and periodicals—which became the primary medium
conceptual artists used to publicize ideas and distribute documentation. Photography
gained added interest as a means of recording an artist’s performance of an idea and as
a historical document of the performance that could be circulated. The influence of
conceptual art was widespread, and it continued to be seen in the 1980s in the work of
artists such as the photographer and image appropriator Sherrie Levine and the image
and text manipulator Barbara Kruger and in the 1990s in the work of artists as
disparate as the Scottish video and installation artist Douglas Gordon and the French
photographer Sophie Calle.

Lisa S. Wainwright

On Kawara  Home  Visual Arts  Painting  Painters

T able of Contents
On Kawara
Introduction Japanese artist
References & Edit History
 Print  Cite  Share  Feedback 
Quick Facts & Related Topics
Also known as: Kawara On

Quizzes Written by James W. Yood

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Can You Match These Last Updated: Apr 29, 2024 • Article History
Lesser-Known Paintings
to Their Artists? On Kawara (born January 2, 1933, Kariya,
Japanese form: Kawara On
Japan—died July 10?, 2014, New York City, New
Born: January 2, 1933, Kariya, Japan
Related Questions York, U.S.) was a Japanese conceptual artist
Died: July 10?, 2014, New York City,
Why is New York City important in noted for several series of works that test
New York, U.S.
the United States? concepts of time and diaristic revelation.
Notable Works: “Today”
What is the average temperature
of New York City? After graduating from high school in 1951,
See all related content →
Kawara moved to Tokyo. In 1953 his
Read Next dispassionate paintings of dismembered bodies
25 Famous Paintings to
were exhibited at the Tokyo Metropolitan
See the Next Time You’re Museum of Art. He began to travel outside Japan in 1959; while continuing to travel
in Florence
incessantly, he made New York his home base from 1965 onward.
Art Abuse: 11 Vandalized
Works of Art

Art History: The Origins of Britannica Quiz

7 of Your Favorite Art
Can You Match These Lesser-Known Paintings to Their Artists?

On January 4, 1966, Kawara began what was perhaps his best-known project, the
Today series (sometimes known as the Date series). For the project, on every day he
was so inclined, Kawara made a monochromatic painting upon which in white paint he
carefully painted the date on which the painting was made. He followed several rules:
any painting not finished by midnight would be abandoned; each painting was
accompanied by a container that included information about the artist’s experiences
that day (e.g., snippets from newspapers); each painting was tailored to language,
dating system, and punctuation conventions used in the city in which Kawara was
making the painting (e.g., [Link].1976 was painted in Berlin). Kawara made more than
2,000 paintings in the series in more than 100 cities around the world.

Another of his projects, the I Got Up series of the 1970s, consists of dated postcards
that he mailed to colleagues around the world and then reassembled for exhibition
purposes. On each postcard he informed the recipient of the precise time he awoke on
the day he mailed the card.

James W. Yood

Load Next Page

