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.
Price Upon Request
Helmsmen (With Various Fires)
Located in New York, NY
It is hard to characterize John Baldessari’s varied practice—which includes photomontage, artist’s books, prints, paintings, film, performance, and installation—except through his ap...
Photogravure
Price Upon Request
Hegel's Cellar Portfolio
Located in New York, NY
It is hard to characterize John Baldessari’s varied practice—which includes photomontage, artist’s books, prints, paintings, film, performance, and installation—except through his ap...
Etching
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How to Brutally Construct an Absurd Sense of Pride
By Alexis Fidetzis
Located in New York, NY
Alexis Fidetzis How to Brutally Construct an Absurd Sense of Pride digital print on paper 30 x 150 cm (7 pieces)
Archival Pigment
Price Upon Request
Fragile
Located in New Orleans, LA
As a conceptual artist, Joe Zammit-Lucia works with a photographic medium to explore issues within the human-animal relationship. He is one of the world’s leading animal portrait art...
Archival Pigment
Price Upon Request
Joseph Beuys & Nam June Paik, Sogetsu Hall Tokyo, Japan
By Paul Garrin
Located in New York, NY
Joseph Beuys & Nam June Paik, Sogetsu Hall Tokyo, Japan, 1982 Vintage silver gelatin print 11 × 14 in 27.9 × 35.6 cm signed
Silver Gelatin
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236.5˚ Arc x 4, Rolled Steel Sculpture by Bernar Venet
By Bernar Venet
Located in Long Island City, NY
A large indoor/outdoor welded iron sculpture by Bernar Venet circa 1990. An iconic modern art sculpture of iron with black patina, title stamped ...
Steel
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CAPE OF GOOD HOPE #112, South Africa 2014
Located in Santa Monica, CA
This large format, color-photograph belongs to Jay Mark Johnson's wave series - the images from which depict the rhythmic cycling and recycling of oceanfront waves as recorded on remote coastlines around the world--in Hawaii, Florida, California, the Caribbean, Great Britain, Australia and South Africa. These artworks belong to the artist’s ongoing inquiry into the possibilities for timeline photography. For this decades-long project Johnson employs an unconventional camera system to produce seamless delineated renderings of familiar events as they occur over time. The results present an altered view of our surroundings. Artworks from Johnson’s timeline series have been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. They can be found in the permanent collections of the Bundestag (German Parliament) in Berlin, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie at Karlsruhe, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Langen Foundation, Hombroich, Germany, the Peter Klein...
Aluminum
Price Upon Request
@Anonymous
Located in New York, NY
@Anonymous 2014 Neon 28 x 25 x 0.5
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RIC: Random Internet Cat #7
Located in New York, NY
Random Internet Cats Robotically-fabricated drawings on paper, these series formally deal with mediation from screen image to ‘drawing’ while using a computer-controlled pen plotte...
Price Upon Request
RIC: Random Internet Cat #3
Located in New York, NY
Random Internet Cats Robotically-fabricated drawings on paper, these series formally deal with mediation from screen image to ‘drawing’ while using a computer-controlled pen plotte...
Price Upon Request
RIC: Random Internet Cat #2
Located in New York, NY
Random Internet Cats Robotically-fabricated drawings on paper, these series formally deal with mediation from screen image to ‘drawing’ while using a computer-controlled pen plotte...
Price Upon Request
Sonica Whispers
Located in New York, NY
Sonica Whispers
Archival Pigment