Conceptual Art

Conceptual art marks a major turning point in late twentieth-century art. An art of ideas which can be written, published, performed, fabricated, or which can simply remain inside your head, it is also an art of questions. Since its emergence in the mid 1960s, it has challenged our precepts about not only art but society, politics and the media. An international movement, conceptual art encompasses not only North America and Western Europe but also South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, China and Japan. Its legacy is global, ranging from small local participatory projects to large-scale installations at major museums and biennales. This comprehensive volume combines in one book an authoritative survey essay by philosopher and art historian Peter Osborne, tracing conceptual art`s origins in Europe, Japan and the USA, its development throughout the 1960s and 1970s and its legacy in contemporary art, a Works section documenting the key works, divided usefully into six distinctive types of conceptual art, and a documents section including texts by philosophers and writers who crucially influenced the movement, alongside key original texts by artists, critics and art historians.This exciting series situates the work of individual artists in the bigger picture of modern art. The uninitiated reader and the scholar alike need look no further to understand the prevailing art tendencies of our time. The development of modern and contemporary art has been dominated by fundamental, revolutionary movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Conceptual or Minimal art, and recurring themes the artist`s relation to the body to the environment to questions of gender and identity. The Themes and Movements series is the first to document twentieth-century and recent art fully by combining expert narrative, key works and original documents. As exhaustive as a full-scale museum overview, it presents the key works of art associated with a particular tendency. The series also offers direct access to the voice of the artist and to primary texts and documents by critics, historians, curators, philosophers and theorists. A unique archive of the innovations, discourses and controversies that have shaped art today, each book features a comprehensive survey by a distinguished scholar. Each title features an introductory essay charting the genealogy of the theme or movement, around 250 plates presenting the most significant works of art including rarely published installation shots and preliminary drawings, an anthology of documents including artist`s statements, interviews, manifestos, project notes, reviews and articles by key critics, parallel texts from other cultural, philosophical and literary sources, and biographies of all artists and authors.