Conceptual Art

Conceptual Art’s significance is that art is an idea and every object has their own representation and meaning, conceptual art removes their identity and recreates a new one – a new purpose and significance. This surfaced during the 1960s and sought to increase the importance of their artwork. They stripped the object from its perception by altering its image or how it is created. They do not create and paintings or sculptures but take existing components and apply them to their ideas – recreating a new form. They rejected traditional values of art as they perceived aesthetic value, function and expression as irrelevant. Their principle was that as long as their artistic ideas were clear they were enough to be considered works of art. It broadened the boundaries of art, even though it was not considered to be truly ‘art’. Conceptual art is just a continuation of the Avant- Garde Movements, it is not meant to be intellectual, it is just one’s personal statement that they wished to share.

Marcel Duchamp was a successful painter in Paris, however he abandoned it completely because he was not interested in the aesthetic value, but in the ideas. He used to select commercial or mass produced products that were accessible, usually practical objects nominating them as art and labelling with titles.

Two very significant artists of that period were Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser. These artists worked together for about twenty years, and during those years they, incorporated designs from diverse time periods, altered any art that existed and recreated them into unique and dynamic forms.

Seymour Chwast style of illustration was described as

· refreshingly creative and expressive

· possessed a foolish and humorous approach

· shared a similarity to the German Expressionists use of primary colours

· full of life and spirit , since he was influenced by Walt Disney.

· His images did not have much depth, meaning they appeared to be flat with no or very little shading, but still created an impact.

Glaser on the other hand, had a lasting impression on graphic design and during a course of 70 years, he experimented and developed his own dynamic techniques.

His art is described

· making use of flat colour – just like the Japanese woodblock prints

· curvy and whimsical lines – like Art Nouveau

· used thin black curvy lines

· used pop art and comic books and surrealism as his inspiration.

Glaser’s notably popular work of art must have been Bob Dylans’s album cover, a black silhouette with brightly coloured locks. This cover teased the audience because if they did not know the identity of this singer, it motivated us to use our imagination and create our own image of his appearance based on his profile, then inserting his details into the space.

I much preferred Chwast’s style because I felt his illustrations communicated a deeper sentiment with his use of primitive and expressionistic art.