What is conceptual art?

Art in which the idea or concept behind the work is its most important aspect, sometimes leaving little or no permanent physical object.

What counts as performance art?

Art made through the live actions of the artist, often using the body, presented before an audience rather than as a fixed object.

Conceptual and Performance Art

Conceptual art made the idea the work, dematerializing the art object, while performance art turned the artist's body and live action into the medium.

Definition

Closely related contemporary practices in which the concept or the live act, rather than a durable crafted object, constitutes the work of art.

Scope

This topic studies the emergence from the 1960s of conceptual art, in which language and idea take precedence over the physical object, and of performance and body art, happenings, and Fluxus, examining how these practices challenged the commodity status of art and expanded its forms and sites.

Core questions

How did conceptual art shift emphasis from the object to the idea?
What does the 'dematerialization' of the art object mean?
How did performance art make the body and live action a medium?
How are ephemeral and idea-based works collected, documented, and exhibited?

Key theories

Dematerialization of the art object: Lucy Lippard's account of how conceptual art of 1966–1972 displaced the physical, saleable object in favor of ideas, documents, and ephemeral acts.
Performance as medium: RoseLee Goldberg's history establishing live performance, from Futurism to the present, as a distinct artistic medium central to the avant-garde and contemporary art.

History

Conceptual and performance art crystallized in the 1960s and 1970s, documented in real time by critics such as Lucy Lippard and historicized by RoseLee Goldberg. Their challenge to the durable, commodified art object continues to shape debates over how museums and markets handle ephemeral work.

Debates

Documenting the ephemeral: Because performance and conceptual works are often transient, scholars debate the status of photographs, scores, and relics as the art itself versus mere records of it.

Key figures

Lucy Lippard
RoseLee Goldberg

Seminal works

lippard1973
goldberg2001

Frequently asked questions

What is conceptual art?: Art in which the idea or concept behind the work is its most important aspect, sometimes leaving little or no permanent physical object.
What counts as performance art?: Art made through the live actions of the artist, often using the body, presented before an audience rather than as a fixed object.