Neo-conceptual art describes art practices in the 1980s and 1990s that emerged out of theconceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. These subsequent initiatives included theMoscow Conceptualists, the United States Neo-Conceptual artists, such asSherrie Levine, and theYoung British Artists, such asDamien Hirst.
Many of the concerns of the "conceptual art" movement proper have been taken up by many contemporary artists since the initial wave of conceptual artists. While many of these artists may not term themselves "conceptual artists", ideas such as anti-commodification, social and/or political critique,digital art, and ideas/information as medium continue to be aspects of contemporary art, especially among artists working withcomputer art,installation art,performance art,net.art andelectronic art. Many critics and artists may speak of conceptual aspects of a given artist or art work, reflecting the enduring influence that many of the original conceptual artists have had on the art world.
The idea of neo-conceptual art (sometimes later termedpost-conceptual art) in the United States was clearly articulated byTricia Collins andRichard Milazzo (working as a team calledCollins & Milazzo) in the early and mid 1980s in New York City,[1] when they brought to prominence a whole new generation of artists through their copious writings and curatorial activity.[2] It was their exhibitions and writings that originally fashioned the theoretical context for a new kind of neo (or post) conceptual art; one that argued simultaneously againstNeo-Expressionism and Picture-Theory Art.[3] It was through this context that the work of many of the artists associated with Neo-Conceptualism (or what some of the critics reductively called “Simulationism” and “Neo Geo”) was first brought together: artists such asRoss Bleckner,James Welling,Steven Parrino,Richard Prince,Peter Nagy,Joseph Nechvatal,Sarah Charlesworth,Mark Innerst,Allan McCollum,Peter Halley,Jonathan Lasker,Haim Steinbach,Philip Taaffe,Robert Gober andSaint Clair Cemin.[4][5]
TheMoscow Conceptualists, in the 1970s and 80s, attempted to subvert socialist ideology using the strategies ofconceptual art andappropriation art. The central figures wereIlya Kabakov andKomar and Melamid. The group also includedEric Bulatov andViktor Pivovarov.[6]
TheYoung British Artists (YBAs), led byDamien Hirst, came to prominence in the 1990s and their work was described at the time as neo-conceptual,[7] even though it relies very heavily on the art object to make its impact. The term is used in relation to them on the basis that the object is not the artwork, or is often afound object, which has not needed artistic skill in its production.Tracey Emin is seen as a leading YBA and a neo-conceptualist, even though she has denied that she is and has emphasised personal emotional expression. Charles Harrison, a member of the conceptual art groupArt and Language in the 1970s, criticizes the neo-conceptual art of the 1990s as conceptual art "without threat or awkwardness"[8] and a "vacant" prospect.[9] Other notable artists associated with neo-conceptualism in the UK includeMartin Creed,Liam Gillick,Bethan Huws,Simon Patterson,Simon Starling andDouglas Gordon.
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1991:Charles Saatchi funds Damien Hirst and the next year in theSaatchi Gallery exhibits hisThe Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine.
1993:Vanessa Beecroft holds her first performance in Milan, Italy, using models to act as a second audience to the display of her diary of food.
1999:Tracey Emin is nominated for theTurner Prize. Part of her exhibit isMy Bed, her dishevelled bed, surrounded by detritus such as condoms, blood-stained knickers, bottles and her bedroom slippers.
2001:Martin Creed wins the Turner Prize forWork No. 227: The lights going on and off, an empty room where the lights go on and off.[10]
2005:Simon Starling wins the Turner Prize forShedboatshed, a wooden shed which he had turned into a boat, floated down the Rhine and turned back into a shed again.[11]
InBritain, the rise to prominence of theYoung British Artists (YBAs) after the 1988Freeze show, curated by Damien Hirst, and subsequent promotion of the group by theSaatchi Gallery during the 1990s, generated a media backlash, where the phrases "conceptual art" and "neo-conceptual" came to be terms of derision applied to muchcontemporary art. This was amplified by theTurner Prize whose more extreme nominees (most notably Hirst and Emin) caused a controversy annually.
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TheStuckist group of artists, founded in 1999, proclaimed themselves "pro-contemporary figurative painting with ideas and anti-conceptual art, mainly because of its lack of concepts." They also called it pretentious, "unremarkable and boring" and on 25 July 2002 deposited a coffin outside theWhite Cube gallery, marked "The Death of Conceptual Art".[12][13] They staged yearly demonstrations outside the Turner Prize.
In 2002,Ivan Massow, the Chairman of theInstitute of Contemporary Arts branded conceptual art "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" and in "danger of disappearing up its own arse ... led by cultural tsars such as theTate's SirNicholas Serota.[14] Massow was consequently forced to resign. At the end of the year, the Culture Minister,Kim Howells (an art school graduate) denounced the Turner Prize as "cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit".[15]
In October 2004 theSaatchi Gallery told the media that "painting continues to be the most relevant and vital way that artists choose to communicate."[16] Following thisCharles Saatchi began to sell prominent works from his YBA collection.
