From Duchamp to Demand: 10 Masterpieces That Show the Evolution of Conceptual Art

In a 1967 Artforum article titled “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” the artist Sol LeWitt gave a simple definition for what would soon become one of the crucial facets of contemporary art in the 20th century and beyond. “In conceptual art,” he writes, “the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work….The idea becomes the machine that makes the […]

Protocinema Founder Mari Spirito on the Manifold Challenges Facing Istanbul’s Art Scene

Conceived as an artistic wormhole connecting New York and Istanbul,Protocinema is the highly unconventional brainchild of the equally unconventional curator Mari Spirito, a former 303 Gallery dealer who in 2011 decided to parlay her voluminous Rolodex of art connections into the kind of free-floating, no-holds-barred platform that artists dream of. Now nearing its fifth anniversary, the […]

From Duchamp to Demand: 10 Masterpieces That Show the Evolution of Conceptual Art

In a 1967 Artforum article titled “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” the artist Sol LeWitt gave a simple definition for what would soon become one of the crucial facets of contemporary art in the 20th century and beyond. “In conceptual art,” he writes, “the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work….The idea […]

Patrick Painter – The Genuine Article

JOHN NEWSOM: So, how did you discover art? What was your ‘eureka’ moment? PATRICK PAINTER: Well, when I was 28, I was living in Paris, and I was working for an insurance company, Metropolitan Life. One day I said to myself, “I don’t know anything about art, so I’m gonna start looking at art.” It’s […]

How to Think About Conceptual Art

There has been a lot of bickering about what Conceptual art is/was; who began it; who did what when with it; what its goals, philosophy, and politics were and might have been. I was there, but I don’t trust my memory. I don’t trust anyone else’s either.  – Lucy Lippard, “Escape Attempts” The term “concept art” […]

10 of Art History’s Most Important (and Now Defunct) Galleries

As a business model, the art gallery occupies a unique position. Functioning as the bridge between art’s existence as a commercial enterprise and its role as a philosophical pursuit, a gallery, unlike other businesses, has a measure of success that is completely divorced from its financial earnings: by championing important artists, and putting on daring […]

10 Exhibitions That Changed the Course of Contemporary Art

If the title of Jens Hoffmann‘s latest exhibition. “Other Primary Structures,” rings a bell, it’s because it’s a revisiting one of the most important American art exhibitions of the 20th century: “Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors,” the 1966 exhibition organized at the same museum by the pathbreaking curator Kynaston McShine that changed the aesthetic course of American art. […]

Dan Graham to Design Met Museum Rooftop Exhibit

The American Conceptualist Dan Graham has long worn many art world hats. He has produced films and videos, drawings and prints; chronicled rock culture; and collaborated with bands like Sonic Youth and Japanther. But Mr. Graham is perhaps best known for his architectural environments and glass pavilions, which he has been designing since the 1980s. […]

Isa Genzken at MoMA and the Schizoconsumerist Aesthetic

They love, love, love Isa Genzken over at the Museum of Modern Art, where the artist’s first major American museum survey remains on view through March 10, before traveling to museums in Chicago and Dallas. The 65-year-old Berlin-based German sculptor, whose 150 works fill 10 open-plan galleries on the museum’s sixth floor, is “one of the most important artists […]