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.
Plot Plan No. 13821
Located in New York, NY
Plot Plan No. 13821 For Proposed Positive Aspect Containment Strategy, watercolor and ink on paper, signed on reverse by the artist and presentd framed in a high quality shadowbox fr...
Archival Ink, Watercolor, Archival Paper
Elmwood and Oaklawn
By Ross Racine
Located in New York, NY
archival pigment print image size: 23.5"x 31.5" on 26.75"x 34.5" sheet edition of 10 available unframed This print is a surreal depiction of an aerial view of a ...
Archival Pigment
Mesh Wonder Ball (1510)
By Joanne Ungar
Located in New York, NY
beeswax, paraffin, cardboard on wood 8.25"x7.75" Joanne Ungar’s use of wax obscures and mystifies the origin of the materials she has imbedded. In this work, the composition is d...
Cardboard, Wax, Wood
Generalized Self Management
Located in New York, NY
graphite, ink, and watercolor on paper 30"x22" available framed Known for her idiosyncratic cartographic explorations of the psyche and mental states, Smith incorporates outer a...
Graphite, Ink, Paper, Watercolor
$1,650
To The River
By Ross Racine
Located in New York, NY
edition of 5 available unframed image size: 23 1/2" x 31 1/2" Ross Racine is an artist living in Montreal (Quebec), Canada, and New York. Racine's works are drawn freehand on a ...
Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
$1,200
Bulb
Located in New York, NY
Walker Pickering is an artist and educator based in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he has taught photography sinc...
Archival Pigment
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
El paseo de la niña
Located in Barcelona, CT
the painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Color
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with work and authenticity certificate
Metal
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with work and authenticity certificate
Metal
$1,066
Nets
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Eva al desnudo
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Acrylic
Pose
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Acrylic
Niño a caballo
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Oil
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
By Lluis Barba
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Ink
Untitled
By Lluis Barba
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Ink
Untitled
By Lluis Barba
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Ink
Untitled
By Lluis Barba
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Ink
Untitled
By Lluis Barba
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Ink
Untitled
By Lluis Barba
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Ink
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Lithograph
They grey square
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Lithograph
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media, Watercolor
Esculturas- Noviembre - Diciembre 1974
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Lithograph
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Wax Crayon
Untitled
By Lluis Barba
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Aguas Serenas
Located in Barcelona, CT
The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
the painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Mixed Media, Printer's Ink
Untitled
Located in Barcelona, CT
the painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate
Ink, Mixed Media
Untitled, MT Inv. No 9-1-56 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 9-1-56 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 28,4 x 19,5 cm (11 1/8 x 7 5/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Silver Gelatin
Untitled, MT Inv. No 4-3-275 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 4-3-275 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 18,1 x 13,1 cm (7 1/8 x 5 1/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, ...
Silver Gelatin
Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-10-51 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-10-51 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 16 x 8,4 cm (6 1/4 x 3 1/4 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pra...
Silver Gelatin
Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-11-31 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 7-11-31 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 18 x 13 cm (7 1/8 x 5 1/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, prac...
Silver Gelatin
Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-437 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-437 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 11,8 x 20,4 cm (4 5/8 x 8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, prac...
Silver Gelatin
Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-431 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 3-8-431 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 15 x 9,8 cm (5 7/8 x 3 7/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pra...
Silver Gelatin
Untitled, MT Inv. No 6-9-23 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 6-9-23 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 23 x 16,5 cm (9 x 6 1/2 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practic...
Silver Gelatin
Untitled, MT Inv. No 4-089 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 4-089 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 20,6 x 12,3 cm (8 1/8 x 4 7/8 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, pr...
Silver Gelatin
Untitled, MT Inv. No 2-070 – Miroslav Tichy, Woman, Czech, Photography
Located in Zurich, CH
Miroslav Tichý (*1926, Czech Republic) Untitled, MT Inv. No 2-070 Unknown, ca. 1970-1990 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet 18,1 x 13,2 cm (7 1/8 x 5 1/4 in.) Unique Print only Tichý, practically reinventing photography from scratch, reconstitutes pictorialism along with it, and not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image - just one moment in the photographic process - but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing. Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is also marked by classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period. – Art, Black and White...
Silver Gelatin