The rise of conceptual photography in the 1960s coincided with the early explorations into video art. Using cameras, artists like Richard Long and Dennis Oppenheim began recording their performances and temporary art works in a manner that is now often described as deadpan. The aim was to make simple, realistic images of the artwork that looked as documentary as possible. It was the pedestrian nature of photography, its unshakable capacity to photograph everything the same, that the artists liked, believing it was the art depicted in the photograph that was important. Precedents for conceptual photography can be found as far back as the early twentieth century when Alfred Stieglitz photographed Marcel Duchamp's readymade made from a urinal, Fountain, for an exhibition in New York. The original Fountain was lost, but the photographs by Stieglitz remain and have become works of art in themselves.
- Part of Speech: noun
- Industry/Domain: Art history
- Category: General art history
- Company: Tate
Creator
- genart
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