Conceptual Art
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.
2010s Conceptual Art
C Print, Photographic Paper, Color, Silver Gelatin
2010s Conceptual Art
Giclée, Archival Ink
2010s Conceptual Art
Wood, Latex, Wood Panel
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
1970s Conceptual Art
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual Art
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
1960s Conceptual Art
1970s Conceptual Art
Lithograph
1980s Conceptual Art
Metal
2010s Conceptual Art
C Print, Lambda
2010s Conceptual Art
C Print, Lambda
2010s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Silver Gelatin
1990s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, Black and White, C Print, Silver Gelatin
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Metal
2010s Conceptual Art
Metal
2010s Conceptual Art
Copper
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Bronze
1980s Conceptual Art
Aquatint, Photogravure
2010s Conceptual Art
Magazine Paper
1960s Conceptual Art
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual Art
Lithograph
1980s Conceptual Art
Etching
1980s Conceptual Art
Etching
2010s Conceptual Art
Canvas, Oil
2010s Conceptual Art
Bronze
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
2010s Conceptual Art
Linen, Wood, Glue
2010s Conceptual Art
Oil, Linen
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
2010s Conceptual Art
Metal
2010s Conceptual Art
Metal
2010s Conceptual Art
C Print, Lambda
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
2010s Conceptual Art
Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Art
Archival Pigment
1980s Conceptual Art
Etching
2010s Conceptual Art
Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Art
Wood, Oil, Acrylic
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
2010s Conceptual Art
Giclée, Archival Ink
1960s Conceptual Art
Lithograph
1960s Conceptual Art
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual Art
Lithograph
2010s Conceptual Art
Bronze
2010s Conceptual Art
Bronze
2010s Conceptual Art
Wax, Wood, Carbon Pencil, Inkjet
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
1980s Conceptual Art
Woodcut
1980s Conceptual Art
Etching
2010s Conceptual Art
Glass
1970s Conceptual Art
Screen
2010s Conceptual Art
Giclée
2010s Conceptual Art
Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Art
Acrylic