Conceptual Art, Conceptualism, and Aesthetic Education

Abstract

In a recent presentation to one of my classes in art theory, a visiting artist referred to her work as rather than medium based in a discipline-specific way to help explain her movement from photography, to installation, and now to multimedia computing as her current artistic focus. In my own introductory studio classes, I have occasionally urged students to be more conceptual in their approach to design. When I say this, I am urging them to work out ideas more fully in advance of their final designs and to engage more deeply in research. Were we using term 'conceptual' in same way? Since emergence of conceptual art as a movement in 1960s, educators and artists have emphasized role of in art education at undergraduate and graduate levels. This emphasis on idea as most important element in artistic development in some cases replaces or deemphasizes formal, representational, and expression-based aspects of art education, especially at advanced levels of artistic training.1 Does this heightened importance of the concept reflect a fundamentally new philosophical conceptualization of art and art education, or, more narrowly, does it reflect historical influence of an art movement and a generation of art educators who came of age in late sixties and seventies?