Tara Joshi

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.

Nude sculptures are a traditional form of art around the world. For thousands of years, artists have expressed ideals, philosophy and cultural beliefs through the nude human form.

One of the oldest examples is the Venus of Willendorf, dating to the Upper Paleolithic period. From the ancient Greek Aphrodite of Knidos to Michelangelo’s 16th-century David, the nude sculpture has continued to evolve.

On a surface level, a nude sculpture portrays the beauty standards and ideals of a time and place, just as the mostly male painters of the Pre-Raphaelite movement can be seen as projecting an idea of feminine beauty that was confined to porcelain-skinned maidens, their auburn locks flowing, enacting scenes of longing or tragedy drawn from tales about Camelot or told by Dante, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Keats. On a deeper level, however, nude sculpture explores culture, traditions and beliefs. Even today, the human body continues to captivate artists and their audiences.

If you’re thinking about bringing nude sculptures or other kinds of sculptures into your home, remember: No matter how big or small your new addition is, it will make a statement in your space (busts, for example, can bring a dose of drama into an entryway). Large- and even medium-sized sculptures can be heavy, so hire some professional art handlers as necessary and find a good place in your home for your piece.

Find a large collection of nude sculptures and other sculptures from various time periods and cultural origins on 1stDibs.