Notes on Conceptual Art History from Prof. Jonathan Anderson @ Biola
Conceptual Art - New Strategy for Meaning
The question: WHERE IS THE ART? This is the question conceptual artists want to ask, and want to make the viewers ask.
Is the art in the object? The performance? The imagery? The context? The idea? The anticipation? The effects on viewers? The experience?
A strategy of interruption our expectations of art and the contemplation of its meaning. What we expect to happen is strategically interrupted, forcing us to make sense of what is impossible to make sense of.
It seeks to destroy our confidence in traditional notions of meanings and interpretations. It displays our confidence in why we call a chair 'a chair'.
Conceptual art presents the issue of 'WHERE IS THE MEANING of a thing?' How do you find it? How do you know? How do you make sense of it? It challenges our interpretation and definition of everything.