conceptual art

American  

noun

1. art in which emphasis is placed on the means and processes of producing art objects rather than on the objects themselves and in which the various tools and techniques, as photographs, photocopies, video records, and the construction of environments and earthworks, are used to convey the message to the spectator.

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conceptual art British  

noun

1. art in which the idea behind a particular work, and the means of producing it, are more important than the finished work

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Other Word Forms

• conceptual artist
  noun

Example Sentences

Because of that, drawing flourished as a wholly independent medium in the 1970s, thanks to the concurrent rise of idea-intensive Conceptual art.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 17, 2025

“Truisms,” Holzer’s first language-based work, emerged amid the Conceptual art of the late 1970s and its backdrop of post-Watergate political fatigue, financial disarray, urban blight and cross-disciplinary punk.

From New York Times • May 16, 2024

Conceptual art was both an extension and a critique of modernism.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 15, 2024

Fluxus was founded in the early 1960s and paved the way for Conceptual art, Minimalism, performance and video.

From New York Times • Oct. 27, 2023

This technique was nearly as old as painting itself and continues to be used, mostly in art schools, but in a decade that featured Pop, Minimalism and Conceptual art, it seemed retrograde.

From Washington Post • Dec. 17, 2022