Conceptual Art
In 1967, artist Sol LeWitt wrote that in “Conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work.” He was giving a name to an art movement that had emerged in the 1960s in which artists were less focused on their medium being something traditionally “artistic” and instead engaged in using any object, movement, form, action or place to express an idea.
LeWitt’s work was featured alongside an assemblage of notes, drawings and outlines by other artists in “Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art,” a groundbreaking show at New York City’s School of Visual Arts curated by Mel Bochner, another leading exponent of Conceptualism. Building on radical 20th-century statements, like Fountain (1917) by French artist Marcel Duchamp, Conceptual artists around Europe and North and South America were not interested in the commercial art scene and rather directly challenged its systems and values.
Stretching into the 1970s, this movement has also been called Post-Object art and Dematerialized art. Conceptual art reflected a larger era of social and political upheaval. Pieces associated with the style range from Roelof Louw’s Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) (1967) — a work of installation art that sees fresh oranges stacked into a pyramid from which visitors are allowed to take one orange away — to On Kawara’s “Today” series, which saw the Japanese artist carefully painting a date in white acrylic on canvases consisting of a single color from 1966 to his death in 2014. Artists such as Ed Ruscha, who created the Twentysix Gasoline Stations book — a collection of photos of gas stations that is widely said to be the first modern artists’ book — made photography a major platform for Conceptual art, as did Bruce Nauman, who burned one of Ruscha's books and then photographed it for his own.
Conceptual art’s legacy of questioning artistic authorship, ownership and how to work with complex ideas of space and time had a significant influence on the decades of culture that followed, and it continues to inform art today.
The collection of Conceptual photography, paintings and sculptures on 1stDibs includes artworks by John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth and others.
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Art
Wood, Paper, Acrylic, Permanent Marker, Monoprint
2010s Conceptual Art
Mixed Media, Acrylic
Late 20th Century Conceptual Art
Silver Gelatin
2010s Conceptual Art
Paper, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Art
Paper, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Art
Paper, Mixed Media, Inkjet
2010s Conceptual Art
Paper, Mixed Media, Inkjet
2010s Conceptual Art
Paper, Mixed Media, Inkjet
2010s Conceptual Art
C Print, Polaroid
2010s Conceptual Art
Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Art
Canvas, Photographic Film, Mixed Media
2010s Conceptual Art
Wood, Oil, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Art
Wood, Oil, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Art
Cotton, Photographic Paper
2010s Conceptual Art
Copper
2010s Conceptual Art
Wood
2010s Conceptual Art
Wax, Carbon Pencil, Inkjet, Wood
2010s Conceptual Art
Wood, Wax, Carbon Pencil, Inkjet
Early 2000s Conceptual Art
Porcelain
2010s Conceptual Art
Wood, Plywood
1990s Conceptual Art
Other Medium
1990s Conceptual Art
Other Medium
2010s Conceptual Art
Polystyrene, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Art
Metal
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Plexiglass, Wood, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Plexiglass, Wood, Oil
20th Century Conceptual Art
Fabric, Plexiglass, Wood, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Plexiglass, Wood, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Fabric, Plexiglass, Wood, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Plexiglass, Wood, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Plexiglass, Wood, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Metal
1990s Conceptual Art
Acrylic, Latex, Latex, Masonite, Wood
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment, Plexiglass, Archiv...
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Canvas, Acrylic
1990s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, C Print
1990s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, C Print
1990s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, C Print
1990s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, C Print
1990s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, C Print
1990s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, C Print
1990s Conceptual Art
Photographic Paper, C Print
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Mixed Media, Wood
1990s Conceptual Art
Oak, Textile, Plexiglass, Mixed Media, Found Objects, Paper, Lacquer, Ta...
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Wood, Mixed Media
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Slate, Steel
1990s Conceptual Art
Acrylic, Wood
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Wood, Mixed Media
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Art
Wood, Mixed Media
Early 2000s Conceptual Art
Canvas, Acrylic
2010s Conceptual Art
Paper
2010s Conceptual Art
Paper
2010s Conceptual Art
Paper
20th Century Conceptual Art
Wood
20th Century Conceptual Art
Mixed Media, Monoprint, Monotype
1980s Conceptual Art
C Print
20th Century Conceptual Art
Mixed Media, Monoprint, Monotype