FUCK YEAH CONCEPTUAL ART

a curated blog about conceptual art and its (many) progeny

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

Hans Haacke, MoMA Poll, 1970

For this installation, Hans Haacke asked visitors to answer the following question by depositing their ballot into the corresponding see-through plexiglass voting box: "Would the fact that Governor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon's Indochina Policy be a reason for your not voting for him in November?" Nelson Rockefeller was at the moment a donor and board member of the MoMA. The Yes box is the left one.

[la-journee-blog]

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

Daniel Buren, Within and Beyond the Frame, 1973, John Weber Gallery

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

A very good text by Boris Groys on the relevancy and the legacy of conceptual art today.

[manbartlett]

1. The artist may construct the piece. 2. The piece may be fabricated. 3. The piece need not be built. Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist, the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership.

Lawrence Weiner, 1968

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

Carey Young, Declared Void, 2005, vinyl drawing and text, dimensions variable, 337,8 cm x 337,8 cm as installed. Part of the Consideration series of mixed media works exhibited at Paula Cooper Gallery in NYC. "Created in conjunction with a legal team, the text, video and performative works entice the viewer into agreements that explore notions of individual autonomy, freedom of speech and the social contract. Engaging participants in a series of contractual relationships, Young dissects the viewer’s experience of the exhibition, from accepting the exhibition invitation, to entering and moving around the exhibition space.

With legally-trained executives increasingly running movie studios, news agencies and universities,Consideration interrogates the legal ‘lock down’ of contemporary cultural life and develops Young’s interest in legal structures, language and the performative." http://www.careyyoung.com/past/consideration.html

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

Bill Vazan, XXe siècle, 1973-1975, acrylic stamped onto canvas.

An ambitious series of ten multi-coloured canvases, stamped with the dates of every decade of the twentieth century. The century is displayed in the paintings systematically, from 1 January 1900 to 31 December 1999. Time is conveyed as surface, according to another unit of measure, as a sequence of information that is transformed into subtle colour fields.

This method, which reveals the evolution of the work’s production, connects Vazan with conceptual art. The process of production, rather than the finished object, is at the heart of his concerns. The chromatic variations in each canvas nevertheless make Vazan’s project unique, setting him apart from the rigour and rationalist principles of the champions of pure conceptual art. The different colours, chosen at random, demonstrate the artist’s commitment to recording time. It is precisely this existential relation with process which gives Vazan’s conceptual work its unity. 

http://www.mnbaq.org/en/exhibition/bill-vazan-9

[visual-poetry]

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

Aram Bartholl, Forgot your password?, 2013, 8 volumes, hardcover, 21 x 27 cm, ca. 800 pages each

In summer 2012 the social network LinkedIn.com got hacked and lost its whole user database. A few months later parts of the decrypted password list surfaced on the Internet. These eight volumes contain 4.7 million LinkedIn clear text user passwords printed in alphabetical order. Visitors are invited to look up their own password.

[theparisreview]

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

A clip from Christian Marclay’s The Clock. Soon to be on show at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal

The Clock is a 24-hour long film made by assembling 1-minute excerpts from various pre-existing movies, each of which shows the current time. You can thus use the film as a clock.

[visual-poetry]

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

On Kawara, I Got Up Series, 10 May 1968 - 17 September 1979.

Every day for the duration of this project, Kawara sent a postcard from the location he was in, stamped with "I got up at" followed by the time at which he had woken up that day.

[icantaffordastudiopractice]

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

Andrea Fraser, Official Welcome, performance and text, 2003

[grupaok]

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

Hans Haacke, Condensation Cube, 1963-65 Installation

"I have partially filled Plexiglas containers of a simple stereometric form with water and have sealed them. The intrusion of light warms the inside of the boxes. Since the inside temperature is always higher that the surrounding temperature, the water enclosed condenses: a delicate veil of drops begins to develop on the inside walls. At first they are so small that one can distinguish single drops from only a very close distance. The drops grow, hour by hour, small ones combine with larger ones. The speed of growth depends on the intensity and the angle of the intruding light. After a day, a dense cover of clearly defined drops has developed and they all reflect light. With continuing condensation, some drops reach such a size that their weight overcomes the forces of adhesion and they run down along the walls, leaving the trace. This trace starts to grow together again. Weeks after, manifold traces, running side by side, have developed. According to their respective age, they have drops of varying sizes. The process of condensation does not end.  The box has a constantly but slowly changing appearance that never repeats itself. The conditions are comparable to a living organism that reacts in a flexible manner to its surroundings. The image of condensation cannot be precisely predicted. It is changing freely, bound only by statistical limits. I like this freedom." HANS HAACKE, 1965

[softpyramid]

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

Guerrilla Girls, Untitled from Guerrilla Girls Talk Back,1985 Silkscreen

[artemisdreaming]

[fuckyeahconceptualart]

John Baldessari, I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, 1971.

Lithograph, 57 x 76,4 cm.