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Thomas Dreher Conceptual Art: Definition
The expansion of the arts ("expanded arts") can be discussed in terms of "action" and "concept." Both of these concepts mark a departure from the self-contained artwork, which is based on a one-time execution (as in gestural painting), toward notation or concept, the execution of which the artist can entrust to others who are not specialized in artistic skills. Realisations of works by George Brecht and Lawrence Weiner, for example, can take the form of actions, but also as text presentations on panels, signs, and walls. The terms "action" and "concept" highlight the challenges faced by an art that breaks free from genre conventions. It is not limited to exhibition venues within the art world (museums, galleries), but seeks presentation opportunities and spheres of activity outside the art world, without claiming the status of art in those contexts (for example, by employing characteristics specific to art genres). In the second half of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, Conceptual artists reacted to non-pre-coded forms of presentation which provoked the question of the status of art: They integrated new forms of reflection on art into their works and explored the question of how to communicate about art. By problematizing the social and economic components that constitute the institutional framework of art and reflecting on their influence on the art discourse, Conceptual Art became context-critical in the 1970s. The discursive framework of Action Art - which encompassed all areas of life and art - narrowed once again with Conceptual Art to focus on issues within the art world. The aim was not to transform art into ways of life, but rather to explore possibilities for relating the discourse on art to forms of presentation outside the art world. Conceptual artists explored the theoretical implications of multimedia forms of presentation and their (non-)institutionalization to the point of a theoretical differentiation that reveals the contemporary discourse on ready-mades and object art - as well as the uncritical integration of these forms of presentation into the art world (as a new genre) - to be insufficient. What characterizes Conceptual Art is not the introduction of new forms of presentation, but rather the recombination of already established modes of presentation, Through this semantic shift (from a to c) - by presenting reflections on art theories and the art world within and as the artwork itself - artists introduce a strategy for creating an expanded framework for the discourse on art. Within this discourse, institutionalized procedures that determine the status of art are to be critically examined. Conceptual artists problematize the dependence of their working conditions on institutionalized frameworks. They ensure the integration of this critique into museum contexts by also introducing their models and theories in exhibitions. Through this self-embedding within the art world, contextual critique is presented under the very conditions it criticizes; however, it can argue more effectively through direct confrontation.
Conceptual art can be understood as a continuum between two poles. The 'field' of conceptual art ranges from planned works - whose realizations explore the relationship between "conception" and "perception" - hrough "semantic ascent" to a theoretically oriented practice of art-about-art. This gives rise to the following three areas: 1. The boundaries of the established art forms of painting and sculpture are crossed in order to establish transitions and relationships between them, but not to open art up to new possibilities of presentation. Thus, Sol LeWitt and Mel Bochner combine wall and floor paintings or drawings with sculptural elements. In some cases, the medium of photography is integrated to help clarify the relationships between two- and three-dimensional forms of presentation. In Bochner's "Three dry-mounted photographs and one diagram" (1966) and LeWitt's "All Variations of Incomplete Open Cubes" (1974), photography and drawing each render three-dimensional elements in two dimensions in different ways. A continuum is developed between the representation of three-dimensional forms on flat surfaces and aspects such as line, plane, and volume, which are familiar elements of the vocabulary of abstract art.
Conceptual art is characterized by:
- Self-reference through semantization rather than through references from one art form to another; These theses define Conceptual Art as a contextual art-about-the-art-world that elevates the self-referentiality of Ad Reinhardt's 1962 "art-as-art" (anti-)dogma from the formal to a metalinguistic level, and shifts the self-reference from the reference point of the artwork to the reference point of the "art world." The "semantic ascent" toward metalinguistic reflection corresponds to a pragmatization achieved through the self-embedding of artistic work within the context of art. The distinction between self-embedding in and adaptation to the art world becomes the subject of a reflection that critically situates one's own work within its context. Artists such as John Baldessari, Jan Dibbets, and Timm Ulrichs, who engage with "conceptual aspects", should be distinguished from this Conceptual Art. Thomas Dreher 2005/2026 This text summarizes the following texts by the author bearing the same title:
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