Conceptual Tendencies 1960s to Today II

Concept Art as an independent artistic movement developed in the USA and Europe in the mid 1960s was based on fundamentally new definitions of the work of art and the role of the viewer in Minimal Art and Zero Avantgarde. The characteristic formal features are clearly defined: objective structures, creative systems that are complete in themselves, the new role of photography and quotation, as well as a tendency to seriality and minimalizing material.

The founders as well as contemporary representatives of Conceptual art examine the conditions under which art comes into being, along with temporal and spatial structures, the congruency of theory and practice, the possibility of involving the viewer intellectually and physically, and also the general conditions for presenting and responding to art in institutions.

The first part of the 2011/12 series Conceptual Tendencies 1960s to today was dedicated to the media factors of language, light, symbol, photography and the readymade, while the artworks in the current exhibition are meditations on the aspects of body, space and volume and their role as materials and media essential to the creation of art. The exhibition also juxtaposes conceptual philosophies of art from the 1960/70s—such as those of Lewitt, O’Doherty, Miyamoto and Sandback—with pictorial and media statements of contemporary artists.

Artworks on loan: Sandra Peters