Conceptual Art

In Well’s “Conceptual art and the photographic” she describes the developments that “contributed to shifting the position of photography in the gallery.” Firstly the rise of pop artists began to use photography as a means of critiquing consumerism and lifestyles, which some felt may have legitimatized photography in some way because, photography was seen “as inherently different” from “established art forms such as painting and sculpture.” Second, “in Conceptual Art the photographic became accepted as a valid medium of artistic expression.”

Conceptual art, Wells describes, “stressed ideas.” “The manner or vocabulary of expression” and the way in which “the spectator responds to the image” were what was important. In other words, the art object itself was not the most significant aspect, but instead the event in which the object existed and how the viewer perceived this moment. For example Keith Arnatt’s “Self Burial” is a literal documentation of the event or process as it took place that plays with the idea of performance.