Post-conceptual art

Art theory

Post-conceptual, postconceptual, post-conceptualism or postconceptualism is an art theory that builds upon the legacy of conceptual art in contemporary art, where the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take some precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns.[1] The term first came into art school parlance through the influence of John Baldessari at the California Institute of the Arts in the early 1970s. The writer Eldritch Priest, specifically ties John Baldessari's piece Throwing four balls in the air to get a square (best of 36 tries) from 1973 (in which the artist attempted to do just that, photographing the results, and eventually selecting the best out of 36 tries, with 36 being the determining number as that is the standard number of shots on a roll of 35mm film) as an early example of post-conceptual art.[2] It is now often connected to generative art and digital art production.[3]

## As art practice

[edit]

Post-conceptualism as an art practice has also been connected to the work of Robert C. Morgan, specifically his Turkish Bath installation at Artists Space in 1976, and in Morgan's writing in Between Modernism and Conceptual Art: A Critical Response  from 1997.[4] It has been connected to the work of Robert Smithson,[5] Mel Bochner, Vera Molnár, Robert Barry, Peter Nagy, François Morellet, Jennifer Bolande, Yves Klein,[6] Piero Manzoni,[7] Lygia Clark,[8] Roy Ascott, Joseph Nechvatal,[9] Allan McCollum, Harold Cohen, Mary Kelly, Annette Lemieux,[7] Matt Mullican, and the intermedia concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins.[10]

## As specific condition

[edit]

Maurizio Bolognini, Sealed Computers (Nice, France, 1997). This installation uses computer codes to create endless flows of random images which will never be accessible for viewing. Images are continuously generated but they are prevented from becoming a physical artwork.[11]

Conceptual art focused attention on the idea behind the art object and questioned the traditional role of that object as the conveyor of meaning. Subsequently, those theories cast doubt upon the necessity of materiality itself as conceptual artists "de-materialized" the art object and began to produce time-based and ephemeral artworks. Although total dematerialization of the art object never occurred, the art object became flexible – malleable – and that malleability, coupled with semiotics and computer processing, has resulted in the post-conceptual art object.[12]

## As general condition

[edit]

Conceptual art at the end of the 20th Century spread to become a general tendency, a resonance within art practice that became nearly ubiquitous.[13] Thus the widespread use of the term “post-conceptual” as a prefix to painting such as that of Gerhard Richter[14] and photography such as that of Andreas Gursky.[13] Benjamin Buchloh in Art After Conceptual Art points out that post-conceptual art is already emerging in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the photo-based appropriation art of Martha Rosler, Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Peter Nagy, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Barbara Rosenthal, and Dara Birnbaum.[15]

The idea of post-conceptual art was clearly articulated by Tricia Collins and Richard Milazzo in the early 1980s in New York City,[16] when within their Collins & Milazzo Exhibitions they brought to prominence a new generation of conceptual artists through their copious writings and curatorial activity.[17] It was their exhibitions and writings[18][19] that originally fashioned the theoretical context for a new kind of neo (or post) conceptual art; one that argued simultaneously against Neo-Expressionism and The Pictures Generation.[20]

British philosopher and theorist of conceptual art Peter Osborne makes the point that "post-conceptual art is not the name for a particular type of art so much as the historical-ontological condition for the production of contemporary art in general...."[21] Osborne first noted that contemporary art is post-conceptual in a public lecture delivered at the Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Villa Sucota in Como on July 9, 2010. Osborne's main thesis is that the convergence and mutual conditioning of historical transformations in the ontology of the artwork and the social relations of art space make contemporary art possible.[22]

## See also

[edit]

* Artificial intelligence art
* Computer art
* Cyberarts
* Electronic art
* Internet art
* Neo-conceptual art
* New Media Art
* Post-convergent
* Postdigital
* Postminimalism
* Postmodern art
* Systems art
* Virtual art

## Notes and references

[edit]

1. ^ Osborne, Peter (2002). Conceptual art. London: Phaidon. p. 28\. ISBN 0-7148-3930-2. OCLC 49551597.
2. ^ Priest, Eldritch (2013). Boring formless nonsense : experimental music and the aesthetics of failure. New York. p. 5\. ISBN 978-1-4411-2408-1. OCLC 828736623.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
3. ^ Osborne 2013, p. 125–131.
4. ^ Morgan, Robert C. (1997). Between modernism and conceptual art : a critical response. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0332-2. OCLC 36590519.
5. ^ Osborne 2013, p. 99–116.
6. ^ AlberroBuchmann 2006, p. 89–93.
7. ^ a b AlberroBuchmann 2006, p. 15.
8. ^ AlberroBuchmann 2006, p. 87.
9. ^ [1] Cybernetics & Human Knowing A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics, Autopoiesis & Cybersemiotics Joseph Nechvatal
10. ^ Osborne 2013, p. 99.
11. ^ “This creation of an inaccessible space between Real and Virtual displays the self-positing nature of Virtuality from the void, and a potential arena for reframing the emptiness of the subject. Bolognini’s position 'at the crossroads of conceptual art and generative art' (Bolognini 2012) can be associated with the post-conceptual practice Peter Osborne identifies as 'the fictional presentness of the contemporary' favouring presentation over representation.” G. Benjamin, The Cyborg Subject. Reality, Consciousness, Parallax, Palgrave Macmillan, London 2016, p. 86.
12. ^ Pryor, Angus (2012-01-01). Post Conceptual Art Practice -Part Two. Grant F. Pooke. ISBN 978-0-9559230-8-1. Retrieved 2021-04-29. `{{cite book}}`: `|website=` ignored (help)
13. ^ a b Smith, Terry (November 2011). "One and Three Ideas: Conceptualism Before, During, and After Conceptual Art". E-flux. 29.
14. ^ Gaiger, Jason (2004). "Post conceptual painting: Gerhard Richter's Extended Leave-taking in themes in contemporary art". In Perry, Gillian; Wood, Paul (eds.). Themes in contemporary art. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Open University. pp. 89–135\. ISBN 0-300-10143-0. OCLC 56191165.89-135&rft.pub=Yale+University+Press+in+association+with+the+Open+University&rft.date=2004&rft_id=info:oclcnum/56191165&rft.isbn=0-300-10143-0&rft.aulast=Gaiger&rft.aufirst=Jason&rft_id=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56191165&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Post-conceptual+art" class="Z3988">
15. ^ AlberroBuchmann 2006, p. 16.
16. ^ Alexander, Max (1989-02-19). "ART; Now on View, New Work by Freelance Curators". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
17. ^ [2] Art at the End of the Social : Rooseum catalogue
18. ^ Effects : Magazine for New Art Theory, Neutral Trends I No. 3, Winter 1986
19. ^ Effects : Magazine for New Art Theory, Semblance and Mediation No. 1 (Summer 1983)
20. ^ Cameron, Dan (October 1999). "Collins & Milazzo". Artforum. 38 (2).
21. ^ Osborne 2013, p. 3&5.
22. ^ Osborne, Peter (9 July 2010). Contemporary art is post-conceptual art (PDF) (Speech). Public Lecture, Fondazione Antonio Ratti. Como. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-12-06. Retrieved 2021-04-29.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Alberro, Alexander; Buchmann, Sabeth (2006). Art after conceptual art. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-51195-7. OCLC 65205170.
* Alberro, Alexander (2003). Conceptual art and the politics of publicity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-51184-3. OCLC 50023702.
* Alberro, Alexander; Stimson, Blake, eds. (1999). Conceptual art : a critical anthology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-01173-5. OCLC 40555800.
* Aliaga, Juan Vicente; Cortés, José Miguel G., eds. (1990). Arte conceptual revisado/Conceptual art revisited. Valencia: Departamento de Escultura, Facultad de Bellas Artes, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Servicio de Publicaciones. ISBN 84-7721-108-6. OCLC 23141143.
* Battcock, Gregory (1973). Idea art : a critical anthology (1st ed.). New York: E. P. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-47344-0. OCLC 741642.
* Corris, Michael, ed. (2004). Conceptual art : theory, myth, and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82388-9. OCLC 51728777.
* Dreher, Thomas (1991). Konzeptuelle Kunst in Amerika und England zwischen 1963 und 1976 (PDF). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
* Godfrey, Tony (1998). Conceptual art. London: Phaidon. ISBN 0-7148-3388-6. OCLC 39676995.
* Goldie, Peter; Schellekens, Elisabeth (2009). Who's afraid of conceptual art? (1st ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-42282-6. OCLC 654781097.
* Honnef, Klaus (1971). Concept art. Köln: Phaidon Verlag. ISBN 3-87635-035-2. OCLC 864279.
* Lippard, Lucy R. (1973). Six years: the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972; a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries ... London: Studio Vista. ISBN 0-289-70332-8. OCLC 973178.Meyer, Ursula, ed. (1972). Conceptual art (First ed.). New York: E. P. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-47271-1. OCLC 489115.
* Marzona, Daniel (2005). Grosenick, Uta (ed.). Conceptual art. Köln: Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-2962-5. OCLC 61260740.
* Migliorini, Ermanno (2014). Dal Sasso, Davide (ed.). Conceptual art (Nuova edizione ed.). Milano. ISBN 978-88-575-2228-9. OCLC 902633610.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
* Morgan, Robert C. (1994). Conceptual art : an American perspective. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 0-89950-950-9. OCLC 29519924.
* Morgan, Robert C. (1996). Art into ideas : essays on conceptual art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-47367-5. OCLC 32625348.
* Newman, Michael; Bird, Jon, eds. (1999). Rewriting conceptual art. London, UK: Reaktion Books. ISBN 1-86189-052-4. OCLC 50661369.
* Osborne, Peter (2013). Anywhere or not at all philosophy of contemporary art. London: Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-78168-478-8. OCLC 1200107302.
* Roberts, John (2007). The intangibilities of form : skill and deskilling in art after the readymade. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-84467-163-2. OCLC 154706791.
* Rorimer, Anne (2004). New art in the 60s and 70s : redefining reality (1st ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-28471-7. OCLC 63665444.

* v
* t
* e

Premodern, Modern and Contemporary art movements

List of art movements/periods

Premodern
(Western)|

| Ancient|

* Thracian
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|

Medieval|

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Renaissance|

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17th century|

* Baroque
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18th century|

* Rococo
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* Louis XVI style
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* Neoclassical architecture in Milan
* Picturesque

Colonial art|

* Art of the African diaspora
* African-American
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Art borrowing
Western elements|

* Islamic
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* Akita ranga
* Uki-e

Transition
to modern
(c. 1770 – 1862)|

* Romanticism
* Fairy painting
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* Purismo
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* Barbizon school
* Costumbrismo
* Verismo
* Macchiaioli
* Academic art
* Munich school
* in Greece
* Neo-Grec
* Etching revival

Modern
(1863–1944)|

| 1863–1899|

* Neo-romanticism
* National romanticism
* Yōga
* Nihonga
* Japonisme
* Anglo-Japanese style
* Beuron school
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* Peredvizhniki
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* American Barbizon school
* California tonalism
* Costumbrismo

|

1900–1914|

* Art Nouveau
* Art Nouveau in Milan
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* Futurism
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* Metaphysical
* Rayonism
* Productivism
* Synchromism
* Vorticism

1915–1944|

* Sosaku-hanga
* Suprematism
* School of Paris
* Crystal Cubism
* Constructivism
* Latin American
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* Dada
* Shin-hanga
* Neoplasticism
* De Stijl
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* Figurative Constructivism
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* Arbeitsrat für Kunst
* November Group
* Australian tonalism
* Dresden Secession
* Social realism
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* Kinetic art
* Anthropophagy
* Mingei
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* Iranian
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* Cercle et Carré
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* Harlem Renaissance
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* Regionalism
* California Scene Painting
* Heroic realism
* Socialist realism
* Nazi art
* Streamline Moderne
* Concrete art
* Abstraction-Création
* The Ten
* Dimensionism
* Boston Expressionism
* Leningrad school

Contemporary
and Postmodern
(1945–present)|

| 1945–1959|

* International Typographic Style
* Abstract expressionism
* Washington Color School
* Visionary art
* Vienna School of Fantastic Realism
* Spatialism
* Color field
* Lyrical abstraction
* Tachisme
* Arte Informale
* COBRA
* Nuagisme
* Generación de la Ruptura
* Jikken Kōbō
* Metcalf Chateau
* Mono-ha
* Nanyang Style
* Action painting
* American Figurative Expressionism
* in New York
* New media art
* New York school
* Hard-edge painting
* Bay Area Figurative Movement
* Les Plasticiens
* Gutai Art Association
* Gendai Bijutsu Kondankai
* Pop art
* Situationist International
* Soviet Nonconformist
* Ukrainian underground
* Lettrism
* Letterist International
* Ultra-Lettrist
* Florida Highwaymen
* Cybernetic art
* Antipodeans

|

1960–1969|

* Otra Figuración
* Afrofuturism
* Nueva Presencia
* ZERO
* Happening
* Neo-Dada
* Neo-Dada Organizers
* Op art
* Nouveau réalisme
* Nouvelle tendance
* Capitalist realism
* Art & Language
* Arte Povera
* Black Arts Movement
* The Caribbean Artists Movement
* Chicano art movement
* Conceptual art
* Land art
* Systems art
* Video art
* Minimalism
* Fluxus
* Generative art
* Post-painterly abstraction
* Intermedia
* Psychedelic art
* Nut Art
* Photorealism
* Environmental art
* Performance art
* Process art
* Institutional critique
* Light and Space
* Street art
* Feminist art movement
* in the US
* Saqqakhaneh movement
* The Stars Art Group
* Tropicália
* Yoru no Kai
* Artificial intelligence art

1970–1999|

* Post-conceptual art
* Installation art
* Artscene
* Postminimalism
* Endurance art
* Sots Art
* Moscow Conceptualists
* Pattern and Decoration
* Pliontanism
* Punk art
* Neo-expressionism
* Transavantgarde
* Saint Soleil school
* Guerrilla art
* Lowbrow art
* Telematic art
* Appropriation art
* Neo-conceptual art
* New European Painting
* Tunisian collaborative painting
* Memphis Group
* Cyberdelic
* Neue Slowenische Kunst
* Scratch video
* Retrofuturism
* Young British Artists
* Superfiction
* Taring Padi
* Superflat
* New Leipzig school
* Artist-run initiative
* Artivism
* The Designers Republic
* Grunge design
* Verdadism

2000–
present|

* Amazonian pop art
* Altermodern
* Art for art
* Art game
* Art intervention
* Brandalism
* Classical Realism
* Contemporary African art
* Africanfuturism
* Contemporary Indigenous Australian art
* Crypto art
* Cyborg art
* Excessivism
* Fictive art
* Flat design
* Corporate Memphis
* Hypermodernism
* Hyperrealism
* Idea art
* Internet art
* Post-Internet
* iPhone art
* Kitsch movement
* Lightpainting
* Massurrealism
* Modern European ink painting
* Neo-futurism
* Neomodern
* Neosymbolism
* Passionism
* Post-YBAs
* Relational art
* Skeuomorphism
* Software art
* Sound art
* Stuckism
* Superflat
* SoFlo Superflat
* Superstroke
* Toyism
* Unilalianism
* Vaporwave
* Walking Artists Network

Related topics|

* History of art
* Abstract art
* Asemic writing
* Anti-art
* Avant-garde
* Ballets Russes
* Christian art
* Art in the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation
* Catholic art
* Icon
* Lutheran art
* Digital art
* Fantastic art
* Folk art
* Hierarchy of genres
* Genre painting
* History painting
* Illuminated manuscript
* Illustration
* Interactive art
* Jewish art
* Kitsch
* Landscape painting
* Modernism
* Modern sculpture
* Late modernism
* Naïve art
* Outsider art
* Portrait
* Prehistoric European art
* Queer art
* Realism
* Shock art
* Trompe-l'œil
* Western painting

* Category

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