Conceptual Art and Artistic Skill
"By adopting language as their exclusive medium, Weiner, Barry, Wilson, Kosuth and Art & Language were able to sweep aside the vestiges of authorial presence manifested by formal invention and the handling of materials."
An important difference between conceptual art and more "traditional" forms of art-making goes to the question of artistic skill. Although it is often the case that skill in the handling of traditional media plays little role in conceptual art, it is difficult to argue that no skill is required to make conceptual works, or that skill is always absent from them. John Baldessari, for instance, has presented realist pictures that he commissioned professional sign-writers to paint; and many conceptual performance artists (e.g. Stelarc, Marina Abramovic) are technically accomplished performers and skilled manipulators of their own bodies. It is thus not so much an absence of skill or hostility toward tradition that defines conceptual art as an evident disregard for conventional, modern notions of authorial presence and individual artistic expression (or genius).
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Famous quotes containing the words conceptual, art, artistic and/or skill:
“I philosophize from the vantage point only of our own
provincial conceptual scheme and scientific epoch, true; but I know no better.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning; now thou art an O without a figure. I am better than thou art now; I am a fool, thou art nothing.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“To “give style” to one’s character—a rare and noble art! Those practice it who compass all that their natures present as strengths and weaknesses and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one appears as art and reason and even weakness enchants the eye.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Before I put a brush to canvas, I question, “Is this mine?... Is it influenced by some idea which I have acquired from some man?”... I am trying with all my skill to do a painting that is all of women, as well as all of me.”
—Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986)