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Conceptual Art

CONCEPTUAL STYLE

In 1967, artist Sol LeWitt wrote that in “Conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work.” He was giving a name to an art movement that had emerged in the 1960s in which artists were less focused on their medium being something traditionally “artistic” and instead engaged in using any object, movement, form, action or place to express an idea.

LeWitt’s work was featured alongside an assemblage of notes, drawings and outlines by other artists in “Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art,” a groundbreaking show at New York City’s School of Visual Arts curated by Mel Bochner, another leading exponent of Conceptualism. Building on radical 20th-century statements, like Fountain (1917) by French artist Marcel Duchamp, Conceptual artists around Europe and North and South America were not interested in the commercial art scene and rather directly challenged its systems and values.

Stretching into the 1970s, this movement has also been called Post-Object art and Dematerialized art. Conceptual art reflected a larger era of social and political upheaval. Pieces associated with the style range from Roelof Louw’s Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) (1967) — a work of installation art that sees fresh oranges stacked into a pyramid from which visitors are allowed to take one orange away — to On Kawara’s “Today” series, which saw the Japanese artist carefully painting a date in white acrylic on canvases consisting of a single color from 1966 to his death in 2014. Artists such as Ed Ruscha, who created the Twentysix Gasoline Stations book — a collection of photos of gas stations that is widely said to be the first modern artists’ book — made photography a major platform for Conceptual art, as did Bruce Nauman, who burned one of Ruscha's books and then photographed it for his own.

Conceptual art’s legacy of questioning artistic authorship, ownership and how to work with complex ideas of space and time had a significant influence on the decades of culture that followed, and it continues to inform art today.

The collection of Conceptual photography, paintings and sculptures on 1stDibs includes artworks by John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth and others.

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Style: Conceptual
Large French Conceptual Sculpture Photograph Triptych Copper Frame Pascal Kern
Large French Conceptual Sculpture Photograph Triptych Copper Frame Pascal Kern

Large French Conceptual Sculpture Photograph Triptych Copper Frame Pascal Kern

Located in Surfside, FL

Pascal Kern (1952-2007) Icone (three panel triptych), 1987 Cibachrome print, inn copper handmade frame. (One is empty of photo on purpose.) Bearing artist label and inscriptions (frame verso) 48 x 48 inches. (each) Provenance: the Ginny L Williams...

Category

1980s Conceptual Art

Materials

Copper

Piazza San Marco, Italy, Architectural Photograph
Piazza San Marco, Italy, Architectural Photograph

Piazza San Marco, Italy, Architectural Photograph

By Reinhard Görner

Located in Los Angeles, CA

60 x 40 inches ed. of 10 $6,000 75 x 50 inches ed. of 7 $9,000 90 x 60 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on label, verso Reinhard Görner, with his large format photogra...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Untitled (Orgy), Digital Pigment Print by Peter Coffin
Untitled (Orgy), Digital Pigment Print by Peter Coffin

Untitled (Orgy), Digital Pigment Print by Peter Coffin

By Peter Coffin

Located in Long Island City, NY

A digital c-print by Peter Coffin. A conceptual work featuring a diptych of two pages from open books referring to the degrees of separation within the relationship between artist, a...

Category

Early 2000s Conceptual Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Bode Museum

Bode Museum

By Reinhard Görner

Located in Los Angeles, CA

50 x 62.5 inches ed. of 7 $6,000 60 x 75 inches ed. of 7 $9,000 70 x 87.5 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on label, verso Reinhard Görner, with his large format phot...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Lambda

Fritz Horstman, Formwork for a Rectangle 2, 2014, Wood, Plywood
Fritz Horstman, Formwork for a Rectangle 2, 2014, Wood, Plywood

Fritz Horstman, Formwork for a Rectangle 2, 2014, Wood, Plywood

By Fritz Horstman

Located in Darien, CT

While working on a large building project several years ago the artist, Fritz Horstman was struck by the poetry in the unfinished state of the construction site. He was drawn specifically to the space between the plywood walls that were raised as formworks for the pouring of cement. That space could only exist for a few hours before the cement truck...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

Wood, Plywood

Jo Yarrington, Ghost Girls, 2018, Organic Material, Photographic Film, Plastic
Jo Yarrington, Ghost Girls, 2018, Organic Material, Photographic Film, Plastic

Jo Yarrington, Ghost Girls, 2018, Organic Material, Photographic Film, Plastic

By Jo Yarrington

Located in Darien, CT

Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation and can be used as a low-level light source for night illumination of instruments or signage or other applications where light must be produced for long periods without external energy sources. Radioluminescent paint used to be used for clock hands and instrument dials...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

Pins, Organic Material, Plastic, Photographic Film, Acrylic Polymer, Fou...

Katherine Jackson, Little Oil 19, 2020, Photograph on aluminum

Katherine Jackson, Little Oil 19, 2020, Photograph on aluminum

By Katherine Jackson

Located in Darien, CT

There are two Little Oil installations available with 6 sculptures each on top of LED light boxes. Little Oil 19 is a digital photographic print on aluminum for the flat files. Katherine Jackson has been working with glass and light together for many years, Recently, she's been making glass castings of vintage oil cans, and displaying them -- singly, in small groupings, or in vitrines -- on light boxes. So far she has created about 90, each one unique. The series is called Little Oil, alluding to Big Oil, and sometimes Small Oils, as in oil painting. But “oil” can mean many things. It has been a source of light (sometimes from unconscionable sources) since ancient times as well as a source of eternal light in many faith traditions. Set atop lightboxes, where each work glows from within, these pieces can simply seem like vessels of light itself. At times, they appear to me to transcend their relation to oil altogether, appearing anthropomorphic or creaturely, even biological. These days, I think of them as archeological artifacts, relics of a past, oil-based, civilization. Necropolis is a print of a painting inspired by a map of the necropolis where the terra cotta soldiers...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

Glass, LED Light, Pigment

Jo Yarrington, Ghost Girls 2018, Digital Print, Plastic
Jo Yarrington, Ghost Girls 2018, Digital Print, Plastic

Jo Yarrington, Ghost Girls 2018, Digital Print, Plastic

By Jo Yarrington

Located in Darien, CT

This series of six transparencies are in an edition size of 3. They are designed to be installed directly onto interior window areas to allow light to pass thru them. These transparencies can also be purchased separately for $3200 each and are an edition size of 3. Dimensions are 72 x 48 inches each. The upper transoms are window transparencies in shades of green. They are also available and can be fit to meet specific window sizes. In this window setting, they are 45 x 45 inches and can be purchased as a set of 5 panels for $3500 for that group. Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation and can be used as a low-level light source for night illumination of instruments or signage or other applications where light must be produced for long periods without external energy sources. Radioluminescent paint used to be used for clock hands and instrument dials...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

Plastic, Digital

Paintbrushes III
Paintbrushes III

Paintbrushes III

By Arman

Located in Long Island City, NY

Artist: Arman, French/American (1929 - 2005) Title: Paintbrushes III Year: 1991 Medium: Paintbrushes and Oil Paint in Epoxy Resin Sculpture, Signature and number inscribed Edition: 2...

Category

1990s Conceptual Art

Materials

Epoxy Resin, Oil

Sleeping Beauty, Old National Gallery, Berlin

Sleeping Beauty, Old National Gallery, Berlin

By Reinhard Görner

Located in Los Angeles, CA

60 x 45 inches ed. of 5 $6,000 80 x 60 inches ed. of 5 $9,000 93.2 x 70 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on label, verso Reinhard Görner, with his large format photographs orchestrates the monumentality of historical architecture, gardens, and masterpieces. An active architecture photographer since 1985, is a master of perspectives and precise spatial compositions, and he thus considers classical sculpture, in all of its possible facets, a special challenge. "Görner’s photographs sometimes open the doors to another world and take the viewer with them on a journey through time. Here the palace is no longer a museum but both royal residence and a site steeped in history. The viewer does not have to share the halls with the masses of visitors; instead the images offer him exclusive impressions of the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) and the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles) as even the king of France was probably never granted. The halls are empty of people, yet they seem to be able to unfurl their individual characters of their own accord. These places practically breathe history, and this aspect is also part of the essence captured in the photographs. King Wilhelm of Prussia was named German Emperor Wilhelm I in the Hall of Mirrors after France was defeated in 1870–1871 in the Franco-German War. The Treaty of Versailles following World War I was also signed there in 1919. In this sense, the architectural photographs of Versailles’s ceremonial rooms have an edge on Renaissance paintings; here even a sense of world history arises within the viewer – one which continues to exert an influence today". Horst Klöver Notes on the Old National Gallery...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Lambda

Harmony and Freedom - 21st Century Contemporary, Figurative, Portrait, Modern
Harmony and Freedom - 21st Century Contemporary, Figurative, Portrait, Modern

Harmony and Freedom - 21st Century Contemporary, Figurative, Portrait, Modern

By Michael Adetula

Located in Ibadan, Oyo

Harmony and Freedom captures the peaceful and reflective mood of the artwork, highlighting the tranquility of the water, which signifies the moment of calm and self-recovery through ...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Canvas, Archival Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic

Unbridled Joy of Festivity - 21st Century Contemporary, Christmas Holiday, Child
Unbridled Joy of Festivity - 21st Century Contemporary, Christmas Holiday, Child

Unbridled Joy of Festivity - 21st Century Contemporary, Christmas Holiday, Child

By Michael Adetula

Located in Ibadan, Oyo

Festivity happiness, is the unbridled joy that both young and old experience during Christmas, most especially small children there experience during Christmas, and the way the holid...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Canvas, Archival Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic

Large Mixed Media Construction Sculpture Painting Ike Ude African American Art
Large Mixed Media Construction Sculpture Painting Ike Ude African American Art

Large Mixed Media Construction Sculpture Painting Ike Ude African American Art

By Iké Udé

Located in Surfside, FL

Iké Udé (1964- Nigerian American) Hand signed and dated 1993 on verso. Large carved and painted abstract wood sculptural construction Dimensions: 58 X 26 X 3 inches The work of Nig...

Category

1990s Conceptual Art

Materials

Thread, Paint, Mixed Media

Jo Yarrington, Mute-Ability_Composition 2, 2019_acrylic, steel, player piano rol
Jo Yarrington, Mute-Ability_Composition 2, 2019_acrylic, steel, player piano rol

Jo Yarrington, Mute-Ability_Composition 2, 2019_acrylic, steel, player piano rol

By Jo Yarrington

Located in Darien, CT

Jo Yarrington’s photographs, prints, works on paper, glass sculptures and architecturally-based installations have been shown in exhibitions at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Yale University, Cornell University, the Museum of Glass, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Artists Space, St. John the Divine Cathedral, Grounds for Sculpture, the Museum of American Glass and ODETTA, among others. International exhibitions have included Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow University, Galeria Sala Uno and Centro de las Artes de Guanajuato. She represented the United States at the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates and participated in the Berlin Biennial. in 2010 she received the Bronze Prize, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia. Yarrington is a recipient of artist grants and Fellowships from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. She has received Residency Fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Museum of Glass, the Museum of American Glass, the Bridge Virtual Residency/ SciArt Center, the Lucile Walton Fellow/Mountain Lake Biological Station, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Anderson Center and the Ucross Foundation, among others. International grants and fellowships have included the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity/Canada, SIMS Residency/ Iceland, Cill Rialaig Artists Residency/Ireland, the Burren College of Art Residency/Ireland and the American Scandinavian Foundation. She is a Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Fairfield University and lives and works in New York City. STATEMENT In site-specific exhibitions, public art commissions, collaborative and individual projects Jo Yarrington has used varied combinations of glass, waxed surfaces, found artifacts and experimental analog photography to investigate the way we perceive – searching for, experimenting with and developing throughout a sensory-based vernacular. Her mostly translucent materials function as physical framework and symbolic membrane. Light, both natural and ambient, provides a kinetic or time-based element to her work. Scale and the integration of architecture are also pivotal components. In the 6-part installation for the two-person exhibition Illuminated, Yarrington continues her interest in the connections between vision, sound and language. In Mute-ability: Compositions 1 – 6, her title for this light-based comprehensive work, she combines the words mute and malleability. The work focuses on found piano rolls, a music storage medium, originally conceived as coded notations or ‘note control data’ for music produced in pneumatic player pianos...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

Steel

Crown Prince
Crown Prince

Crown Prince

By Deborah Oropallo

Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist: Deborah Oropallo (1954-) Title: Crown Prince Medium: Etching and aquatint in colors Date: 1987 Printer: Teaberry Press (Timothy Berry, San Franci...

Category

1980s Conceptual Art

Materials

Etching, Aquatint

Jeff Becker, Flag Privacy, 2016, Archival Paper, Inkjet Paper
Jeff Becker, Flag Privacy, 2016, Archival Paper, Inkjet Paper

Jeff Becker, Flag Privacy, 2016, Archival Paper, Inkjet Paper

By Jeff Becker

Located in Darien, CT

Using his inkjet printer as a paintbrush, Jeff Becker creates watercolor-like imagery without Photoshop or filters. He refers to this process of dynamic chemical processes as The Sl...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Inkjet

John Morton, Fever Songs, 2018, site specific sound installation
John Morton, Fever Songs, 2018, site specific sound installation

John Morton, Fever Songs, 2018, site specific sound installation

By John Morton

Located in Darien, CT

Fever Songs is an interactive public sound installation project that brings together the vocal traditions of many religions, creating an active sonic experience that explores spiritu...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

Metal

Fritz Horstman, Formwork for a Rectangle, 2015, Plywood, Wood
Fritz Horstman, Formwork for a Rectangle, 2015, Plywood, Wood

Fritz Horstman, Formwork for a Rectangle, 2015, Plywood, Wood

By Fritz Horstman

Located in Darien, CT

While working on a large building project several years ago the artist, Fritz Horstman was struck by the poetry in the unfinished state of the construction site. He was drawn specifically to the space between the plywood walls that were raised as formworks for the pouring of cement. That space could only exist for a few hours before the cement truck...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

Wood, Plywood

Ganymed, Palazzo Grimani, Venice

Ganymed, Palazzo Grimani, Venice

By Reinhard Görner

Located in Los Angeles, CA

50 x 49 inches ed of 10 $6,000 60 x 59 inches ed of 7 $9,000 70 x 68.8 inches ed of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on label, verso Reinhard Görner with his large format photographs orchestrates the monumentality of rooms. An active architecture photographer since 1985, is a master of perspectives and precise spatial compositions, and he thus considers classical sculpture, in all of its possible facets, a special challenge. "Görner’s photographs sometimes open the doors to another world and take the viewer with them on a journey through time. Here the palace is no longer a museum but both royal residence and a site steeped in history. The viewer does not have to share the halls with the masses of visitors; instead the images offer him exclusive impressions of the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) and the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles) as even the king of France was probably never granted. The halls are empty of people, yet they seem to be able to unfurl their individual characters of their own accord. These places practically breathe history, and this aspect is also part of the essence captured in the photographs. King Wilhelm of Prussia was named German Emperor Wilhelm I in the Hall of Mirrors after France was defeated in 1870–1871 in the Franco-German War. The Treaty of Versailles following World War I was also signed there in 1919. In this sense, the architectural photographs of Versailles...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

C Print, Lambda

Jeff, Becker, Privacy Policy animation, 2016, Other Medium
Jeff, Becker, Privacy Policy animation, 2016, Other Medium

Jeff, Becker, Privacy Policy animation, 2016, Other Medium

By Jeff Becker

Located in Darien, CT

Using his inkjet printer as a paintbrush, Jeff Becker creates watercolor-like imagery without Photoshop or filters. He refers to this process of dynamic chemical processes as The Slu...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Other Medium

Luciano Berio's Epiphany Large Abstract Collage Israeli Painting
Luciano Berio's Epiphany Large Abstract Collage Israeli Painting

Luciano Berio's Epiphany Large Abstract Collage Israeli Painting

By Naftali Golomb

Located in Surfside, FL

Collage and Painted mixed media artwork painting. Born 1930 in Chile, Golomb immigrated to Palestine in 1935. He later became a member of the Radius Group and an instructor at the A...

Category

1980s Conceptual Art

Materials

Acrylic Polymer

Bapst Library, Boston
Bapst Library, Boston

Bapst Library, Boston

By Reinhard Görner

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Bapst Library Boston 50 x 62.4 inches ed. of 10 $6,000 60 x 74.9 inches ed. of 7 $9,000 70 x 87.4 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on label, verso Paper is trimmed to...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

C Print, Lambda

"Untitled 1.15" Photography 16' x 24' inch Edition of 15 by García De Marina

"Untitled 1.15" Photography 16' x 24' inch Edition of 15 by García De Marina

By García De Marina

Located in Culver City, CA

"Untitled 1.15" Photography 16' x 24' inch Edition of 15 by García De Marina García de Marina was born in Gijón (Spain) in 1975. He emerged thru a deep transformation in 2010. A do...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Digital Pigment

Biblioteca Marucelliana, Florence

Biblioteca Marucelliana, Florence

By Reinhard Görner

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Biblioteca Marucelliana Florence, Italy 2022 62.5 x 50 inches ed. of 10 $6,000 75 x 60 inches ed. of 7 $9,000 87 x 70 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on label, verso ...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

C Print, Lambda

Biblioteca Ortopedica, Bologna, Italy

Biblioteca Ortopedica, Bologna, Italy

By Reinhard Görner

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Biblioteca Ortopedica Bologna, Italy 2022 A view of the main table and globe of the main scientific library in the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, named for Italian King Umberto I. The vista is framed between echoing frescoed arched ceilings, cases of scientific volumes, and geometric floor. These sixteenth-century rooms, where the books of the Olivetani Monks were kept, are located in the ancient complex of San Michele in Bosco. They were transformed into an orthopaedic hospital at the end of the nineteenth century. The library holds an important scientific collection...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

C Print, Lambda

Amber Lens
Amber Lens

Amber Lens

By Craig Sheperd

Located in Buffalo, NY

An original enamel on metal painting by emerging contemporary conceptual artist Craig Sheperd (b. 1984) Craig Sheperd’s paintings, most of which are enamel on metal, were created o...

Category

2010s Conceptual Art

Materials

Metal, Enamel

Les Indestinés, Charcoal, Black & White Drawing, Wave, Sea
Les Indestinés, Charcoal, Black & White Drawing, Wave, Sea

Les Indestinés, Charcoal, Black & White Drawing, Wave, Sea

By Fabien Granet

Located in AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FR

Work : Original Drawing, Handmade Artwork, Unique Work. Medium : Charcoal and Graphite on Archival Watercolour paper 300Gsm. Artist : Fabien Granet Subject : Les Indestinés (series ...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Charcoal, Graphite

Conceptual art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Conceptual art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, purple, orange, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Reinhard Görner, Kojun, Jose Sierra, and xulong zhang. Frequently made by artists working with Paper, and Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Conceptual art, so small editions measuring 1 inches across are also available. Prices for art made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $45 and tops out at $500,000, while the average work sells for $2,465.