39. Photographic Art Movements3 : Conceptual Photography (1960-the present)
What Is Conceptual Art?
Conceptual art, also called "linguistic art" is a form of art making that began in the 1960's. It's synonymous with the Post Modern art period (in which we still live) and is closely aligned with Dadaism. Both Dadaism and Post Modernism began in protest to wars, Dadaism rebelled against society during WWI and Post Modernism, aka counter culture, or hippie culture, took off during the Vietnam War.
With conceptual art, the idea, or word, is what matters. The object is just an example, or documentation of the idea. So, factors that used to matter, like craft and skill, are no longer necessary. Some conceptual artists, like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, come up with an idea, and then hire a factory to make the object, which they sign as their own art. Very often, the idea involves making something temporary that will soon fall apart or melt, like the land art of Andy Goldsworthy, or a performance that only those present may experience (NOTE: Performance art and Performing arts are completely different things). With conceptual art, the object need only convey the message of the idea:
The Necessity of Photography in Conceptual Art
With so much Post Modern art lasting only for a moment, a problem emerged - how to document the work so it can make it's way into the history books, and also, of course, how to make money off it? That's actually one of the greatest ironies of this movement, that so many artists tried to resist the commodification of art and capitalism, right at a moment when society needed art most as a form of status symbol, an investment tool, and a major method of tax evasion. And, so, all this art that was never meant to be sold has found its way into the market, at record-breaking prices.
And so, many artists turned to photography to document their work. These artists did not consider themselves photographers, but rather "photoconceptualists" or "artists using photography". Edward Ruscha once said, "Photography's just a playground for me. I'm not a photographer at all." These artists relied on photography for some of their work, but they also worked in other media. Ruscha was a painter, Robert Morris was a sculptor. William Eggleston made "electronic soundscapes". Baldessari explains why he went into photography in this 2004 interview with Gea Politi,
"The thing you always get about abstract art from the public is 'I don’t get it,' or 'My kid could do that.' So I thought, 'What would happen if you made things perfectly understandable? Would it work any better?' Well, of course, the answer is no. What I decided then was, 'I’ll use text and I’ll use photography because people probably read magazines and newspapers and watch TV. That seems to be a very democratic language.' And so I decided just to give people what they wanted and see if that would be any better. But of course, it wasn’t any better [laughs]. That wasn’t art either."
A Bit of Historical Context
Post Modernism and Conceptual art came at a time of great unease and doubt. By 1960, many of the promises of Modernism seemed false. The "free" western world promised greater wealth and opportunities to the working class, while engaging in never-ending wars abroad, first WWII, then the Korean War, and then in Vietnam. Young, working-class men were forced via the draft to fight and die for their country, or dodge the draft, by fleeing to another country.
Meanwhile, the modern age promised new and better products - machines to make life easier, and new medicines. Yet, the factories that made these products created new, dangerous pollution that increased cancer rates. Nuclear facilities, like 3 Mile Island, promised clean energy, but then blew up. Our new, modern society brought with it new diseases and diagnoses, like depression and autism. As a result, all the so-called facts given by modern society and philosophy - the meaning of life, how to raise a family, etc., were called into question. And, not to forget, this was a time when America, which prided itself as the land of the free, was suffering brutal oppression, as shown during the women's rights and civil rights movements.
By this point in time, there were also many artists who had led the way in previous generations, questioning everything about modern life: Dadaists like Marcel Duchamp, Surrealists like Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Dora Maar, Expressionists like Rothko and Pollack. By the 1960's a new wave of artists had a blueprint for how to shock audiences and protest atrocities. And, this is what they did.
The Underlying Philosophy of the Movement
Two of the major philosophers of this period were Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Foucault studied history, and considered which aspects of life were better and which were worse - he spurned the notion that everything in the modern day is better. He considered political and economic power structures, like capitalism and wealth gaps, and how all this interplay affected people's interactions with police, the law, and doctors and psychiatry - in fact he was admitted as a psychiatric patient at age 22, after an attempted suicide. Foucault wanted to explore ways to make these structures more egalitarian and fair, to create a more utopian world - he was considered a political revolutionary and socialist. He's still quite influential at universities, world-wide.
Derrida preached for a "deconstruction" of intellectual society and its ideas and principles - basically take no idea for granted. Consider the worth of every idea with fresh eyes, and test the logic behind it. If doing this leaves you, at times, confused and unsure, it's not a sign of stupidity, but intellectual and emotional maturity - because at least your being honest, and your eyes are open.
Conceptual artists and photographers have been greatly influenced by Foucault and Derrida, using art to deconstruct and critique society. They believe art is a reflection of society and should comment on it. They often borrow (or appropriate) from famous images, such as celebrity photos, advertisements, and so on. Serial photography is popular - presenting multiple copies of the same image as one artwork - it's a comment on how society mass-produces everything:
Conceptual photographers may also restage events, in order to photograph them. They also use art as a means of protesting political and health crises, one of the biggest examples being the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s-90s.
Because Post Modernism is an umbrella term for many smaller art movements, not all conceptual photography looks alike. These artists focused on all kinds of new artforms: minimalism, installation art, performance art, process art, land art, pop art, feminist art, and so on. Apart from the conceptual basis of all these movements, the goals and appearances vary drastically.
Originally, conceptual photography had a lo-fi aesthetic. These were not trained photographers, but merely amateurs interested in preserving some record of their work. Ed Ruscha and Douglas Huebler would point a camera in the direction of the subject, and take a photo with no aesthetic concerns whatsoever. Over time, the aesthetic has changed as artists like William Eggleston, Cindy Sherman, Rineke Dijkstra, and others have grown much more sophisticated - they are actually concerned with "the look" of their images..
Innovative Techniques
The 20th century saw a great deal of technological innovation in the field of commercial photography and printing, especially for mass printing newspapers and magazines. Post Modern artists followed these innovations and used them in their work. William Eggleston used dye-transfer printing to get the best quality inks and super saturation into his prints. Conceptual photographers like Eggleston also championed color photography, going against the greats of the Straight Photography generation - artists like Walker Evans who insisted that black and white was the only color for art photography.
This is also a time when digital photography and inkjet printing took off and became accepted in the art world.
How was it represented in the other arts? Music? Literature? Architecture?
Post Modernism and conceptualism have touched everything, often adding a sense of humor to their medium. Conceptual literature is often absurdist, like Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, a story of two friends who spend hours waiting for a third friend who never comes. Then there are films like Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, and even stranger, experimental films like Window Water Baby Moving by Stan Brakhage. Composer John Cage's complete career can be labeled conceptual. He wrote the piece 4'33" in which the pianist simply sits and waits for 4 minutes, 33 seconds, and whatever noise is heard in the concert hall is the piece. Meanwhile, the architect Frank Gehry would crumple up pieces of paper, throw them into a pile, and however they landed, he'd use it as inspiration for some of his buildings. Believe it or not, these sorts of creative and absurdist processes are still being used today by all sorts of leading artists.
What's the Dusseldorf School of Photography?
The term 'school' can be confusing in art history, because actual schools you could go to were often referred to as academies. The term 'school' usually just refers to a group of artist friends who lived for a time in the same town, meeting and exchanging ideas, critiques, etc. You can usually tell if artists were in the same "school" if they painted in the same period, in a similar style and aesthetic.
The Dusseldorf School is, however, an actual academy - the Kunstakademie of Dusseldorf, where a famous couple of conceptual artists, Bernd and Hilla Becher, taught an entire generation of world famous conceptual photographers (see list below).
Bernd Becher had grown up in a mining valley in the Ruhr Valley, and was dismayed by how the old industrial buildings were being torn down. After studying art at the Kunstakademie, he and his wife, fellow student Hilla, began photographing coal mines, steel mills, cooling towers, water towers, grain elevators, and so on - comparing and contrasting their similar shapes and designs. They exhibited their photos, organizing them into little groups, based on similar structures, which they referred to as "typologies". They considered themselves documentarians, and were able to save and preserve some important buildings.
The couple won numerous awards, and in 1976 began teaching photography as the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. They believed in taking photos in an objective way, as a form of honest documentation. This tradition is the hallmark of all the Dusseldorf, or Becher School, of photography.
Was it Great?
Was it meant to be? Does it need to be? I think these are two of the great questions that help us understand the art period we live in today. A lot of this art isn't meant so much to inspire us, but rather to document, criticize, puzzle us, and, at times, entertain us. Conceptual artists can often be best understood as comedians - artists with a sense of humor. Not all conceptual art is funny, just as not all pop song lyrics are funny - but a great deal of it is. This opinion is my own, I'm sure many leading institutions would disagree - don't laugh at the art! But, I see it, and appreciate it best in this light. So, any time I see a work where my initial response is, "I don't get it," I consider the question, "Ah, is this meant as a joke? Now it's clever."
Some Leading Figures:
Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Douglas Huebler (American, 1924-1997)
Robert Morris (American, 1931-2018) (mostly a sculptor)
John Baldessari (American, 1931-2020)
William Anastasi (American, 1933-2023)
Edward Ruscha (American, 1937-)
Floris Michael Neususs (German, 1937-2020)
William Eggleston (American, 1939-)
Bruce Nauman (American, 1941-)
Martha Rosler (American, 1943-)
John Hilliard (English, 1945-)
James Casebere (American, 1953-)
Nan Goldin (American, 1953-)
Cindy Sherman (American, 1954-)
Rineke Dijkstra (Dutch, 1959-)
The Dusseldorf School of Photography:
Bernd (German, 1931-2007) & Hilla (1934-2015) Becher
Candida Hofer (German, 1944-)
Thomas Struth (German, 1954-)
Andreas Gursky (German, 1955-)
Thomas Ruff (German, 1958-)
Thomas Demand (German, 1964-)
Max Becher (German, 1964-)
Petra Wunderlich (German, ?)
Some of the Greatest Artworks of the Movement:
Posting high-res images of photographs online is problematic, as many of these artists are still living and producing, and their work is still in galleries. More than any other medium, photography is so easy to copy, print, and basically steal off the internet. So, the artists, collectors, and galleries don't generally like for third parties to display their work. I will try asking permission, and over time I may be able to show some nice examples here, but for now I don't have the time, and don't want to upset anyone. If I find anything that's in the public domain, say posted in Wikimedia, I will add it here soon. Fortunately, as this is mostly "literary" art, you should get the idea from written descriptions of the pieces:
In 1963, Ed Ruscha published a book, 26 Gas Stations, photographing every gas station where he stopped on his drive from Oklahoma to California, through Route 66. Originally he had 60 photos, but he edited out the ones he thought were too interesting. His process was simply to point the camera at the station and shoot, without any thought for beauty or composition. Some have interpreted the book as a religious commentary on Jesus' Stations of the Cross, and Ruscha has not denied it.
In 1966, Ed Ruscha made a book, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, in Hollywood, where, again, he went down the road, stopping in front of every building, and taking a photograph.
From 1966-68, John Baldessari painted a series called Wrong, based on breaking the rules of composition from a photography book. He made examples breaking every rule in the book.
In 1967 Ruscha made a book, Thirtyfour Parking Lots. They were photos of parking lots.
In 1969 Douglas Huebler laid out a rectangle of sawdust by a doorway, and photographed how people would step on it, messing it up, over the course of 6 hours. He titled the photographs Durable Piece #6.
In 1970 Huebler went to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and took a series of photos as he walked around, doubling the time between each photo, so that it started at a 1 second interval, then 2 seconds, then 4, then 8, 16, 32, a minute 4 seconds, 2' 8", 4' 16" 8' 32", 17' 4". The series gives an impression of a random walk in Amsterdam.
In 1970 John Baldessari and his friends burned all their paintings from 1953-1966, used the ashes to bake "cookies" and placed them in an urn. The Cremation Project includes a bronze plaque and a recipe for the cookies.
In 1973, Baldessari shot a series of photos titled The Artist Hitting Various Objects With A Golf Club, in which he was photographed hitting 30 objects found at a town dump.
Also in 1973, Baldessari threw three balls into the air, attempting to make a straight line, while photographing it. He used one roll of film, and the best of the 36 exposures was the art.
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