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

Pondering her return to sculpture after several decades as an acclaimed performance and conceptual artist, Fraser notes that the L.A. artists in this year’s biennial are united by the intersection of conceptual art and craft.

From Los Angeles Times

Two of Ben Hania's previous films - 2024's Four Daughters about teenage sisters who joined IS, and 2021's The Man Who Sold His Skin, about a Syrian refugee who becomes a conceptual art object - were nominated for Academy Awards.

From BBC

It may be a layered example of up-to-the-minute Conceptual art, deeply absorbing and surprisingly suggestive, but the deeds are also lithographs, a perfectly traditional medium.

From Los Angeles Times

In true Conceptual art form, the notarized documents confirming the transactions are lined up on the wall in alphabetical order, from Alabama and Alaska to Wisconsin and Wyoming, in two rows of 25.

From Los Angeles Times

I understood he had gone to Cal Arts in the conceptual art heyday of that school and that he was part of the Groundlings, an experimental theater group, but other than that, I didn’t know much.

From Salon