Conceptual art
觀念藝術
Art that treats the idea behind a work as more important than its making or its appearance; it arose in the United States and Europe in the late 1960s.
Where to see it now
01About
In 1967 the American artist Sol LeWitt wrote that in conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. Michael Craig-Martin's An Oak Tree (1973) is one of the examples most often cited. On a glass shelf about 253 centimetres up the wall stands a glass of water; beside it, a text in question-and-answer form has the artist say that he has changed the glass of water into an oak tree without changing how it looks. The work was first shown in London in 1974; Australian customs once refused it entry as vegetation, and the artist had to explain that it was really a glass of water. Craig-Martin, born in 1941, was educated in the United States and moved to Britain in 1966, where he became an important teacher of the generation known as the Young British Artists. For decades he has drawn everyday objects such as phones, light bulbs, and headphones in outline and saturated colour. His first solo exhibition in Taiwan, at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, runs from An Oak Tree to the digital animation Cosmos (2024).
02In the gallery
Read the question-and-answer text beside An Oak Tree, then look at the glass of water again: has what you see changed? On the walls of everyday objects, find something you use every day yourself.
Wall label terms in Chinese
- 觀念藝術
- Conceptual art
- 英國青年藝術家（YBAs）
- Young British Artists (YBAs)
- 壁面線描
- Wall drawing
03Notes
If what you see has not changed, what has the artist changed?