Conceptual Art




Conceptual Art

Conceptual art is when the meaning behind a piece of artwork is more important than the finished artwork itself. Some conceptual artists find that the words used to describe the artwork are more meaningful than the art. 

In the BBC Documentary called 'Who's Afraid of Conceptual Art', the host talks about how artwork has slowly been confused and combined with objects. Objects with nothing added to them are now considered art as they can give a very interesting meaning when labelled appropriately. This now cannot limit the interpretations of a piece of art as it can be left up to the viewers imagination.

For example, Alphonse Allais's artwork called
 'Negroes fighting in a cellar at night' (translated 
from French) is simply a black piece of paper in 
a frame. It was originally created as a joke to show that a picture can be seen as anything when given the right description. 

He also created a red piece and a white piece, calling them by different names but them showing the same thing; it's the thought that counts. As long as the artwork is given the right name to create the right imagery for the viewer, then the artwork doesn't even have to be anything special. E.g. a yellow piece of paper could show any image if called something that has a colour of yellow, like "Small chicks playing in a field of buttercups on a sunny day".

Another example is the artist Piero Manzoni. In 1961, Manzoni created some artwork called 'Artist's Shit'. The work consisted of 90 tin cans, each (supposedly) filled with 30 grams of faeces, and measuring 4.8 by 6.5 centimetres, with a label in Italian, English, French, and German. All read the same thing: 
Artist's Shit
Contents 30 gr net
Freshly preserved
Produced and tinned
in May 1961

 Since no one actually opened the can (due to it's potential loss in value), whether the cans actually contained Manzoni's faeces or not was a mystery.
A tin was sold for €124,000 at Sotheby's on May 23, 2007, and have gone up in price ever since. Originally, the cans were only $37 each in 1961.

 Depending on peoples' creativity and imagination, they can decide whether they believe that the can contains what it says it does.

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