Conceptual Art

The idea is all when an artist begins creating.  If we could bottle and sell inspiration, we would, but the artist relies on his own inner muse to dictate what piece to create and the details to include, and just as importantly, to omit.  What is art?  Is it the finished piece hanging on your wall or in a museum, is it the process of creating art, is it the idea itself?  And when does art become something else, such as a work composed of only words?  If you are bothered by these questions in your intellectual life, consider conceptual art.  “Performance art,” some call it, that range of art that forged ahead of abstract expressionism and came into its own in the late 1950’s, flowered in the 1960’s and 1970’s and even now, in the 21st century, continues to defy a concrete definition.  

Just as we step backward from a museum painting to see what it looks like from a few feet away or even from across the gallery, we step backward from the idea that art is a painting hanging on a wall and endeavor to see the broader picture.  Is art using objects that are not unique and were not created to be art, such as the upended Cadillacs at Texas’ Cadillac Ranch, still considered to be art?  Is such a thing as the use of automobiles in Nebraska’s Carhenge art, kitsch, or something else altogether?  What about the Great Wall of China?  It is visible from space, the only manmade object that can claim that distinction.  Is this art, a practical fence to keep out the Mongols, a tribute to the genius of the Chinese people or something that remarks upon mankind’s ability to mold his environment?  
Before you turn away from the subject in utter confusion, learn about conceptual art.  There is a term, the “readymades,” that was used from the beginning to designate a thing used artistifrom ceramic with a silvery faucet, yet its origin was plainly to bring water to thirsty folk and nothing more.  Conceptual artists argue that treating art as a commodity denigrates the artistic work and even espouse the notion that once someone has seen a work of art, it is in the viewer’s mind and is owned by the viewer.  Such an idea moves and shakes the very foundation of the art world and could even end the complex synergism of artist, his works, his gallery and the commercial aspects that share his work with the world:  the showing, the client, the agent and the internet.

If we share the philosophy of Yoko Ono and others, merely writing about the work of art is enough and we do not have to actually see its completed form.  We have the idea, say the conceptual artists, and that is enough.  It is all on the intellectual plane and we haven’t the need to mess about with paints, stretch canvases, approach clients to make a sale or deal with refunds.  It’s all done for us, in the limits of our minds.  This use of verbal and literary devices to bring art to life could not be more aesthetic; the problem is, is this art?  And so we are back to the original question.  From mimes in the park practicing their performance art to signmakers using a new font to describe a gasoline station to a one-kilometer rod sunk into the earth which leaves only a few centimeters sticking out, we see that the notion of “what is art” includes the realm of the nearly purely intellectual consideration of the subject.  This confuses us, but our minds are stretched in all the right ways.