Artpress revisits the fundamentals of Conceptual art

The French art magazine artpress has published an interview revisiting the origins of Conceptual art, anchored by the 1969 exhibition 'Konzeption-Conception' at the Museum of the City of Leverkusen, Germany. That show featured photographs, diagrams, and texts, revealing a widespread dematerialization of the artwork across Western art. While Sol LeWitt was regarded as the movement's godfather, Conceptual art initially reacted against the formalism of earlier abstraction. Drawing on American analytic philosophy and Marcel Duchamp, theorists like the Art & Language group, Victor Burgin, and Joseph Kosuth systematically questioned art's definition, while Lawrence Weiner proposed poetic situations for audiences to experience. Despite its sometimes arid manifestations, Conceptual art achieved such success that the term became overused, often applied to any enigmatic object. The interview aims to return to the movement's fundamentals.