This text is intended as a short exploration of conceptual art. It hopes to serve as a simple introduction to the art form, and to provide some ideas as to how to approach and understand it.
As a society, our understanding of conceptual art appears to be limited. In general, this is due to no fault of our own - the world of art has changed a lot within the last century, but this change has mostly been ignored, denied or neglected by our education system and our popular media. Our idea of what constitutes art has never been so varied and, whilst this widening of the horizon is no bad thing, it can frequently lead to confusion.
The economy of space and the scale of the topics we shall be exploring will necessitate a certain amount of generalization, for which this text asks to be forgiven. At best, it hopes to offer some ideas and insights that may be of use to you the next time you decide to take a trip to a contemporary art gallery.
Some of you may be very much at ease with the idea of conceptual art, and to those of you who this applies, this text hopes to serve as an interesting reminder or a handy point of reference.
