I figured it was about time I write an article explaining why conceptual art sucks, since every time I encounter conceptual art, I start to twitch. Just to define what I'm talking about when I say "conceptual art," here's an example: In 1936, this guy named Walker Evans took some really nice black and white pictures of depression-era sharecroppers in rural Alabama. So far that's not conceptual art, it's just good photography. Then in 1979, a conceptual artist named Sherrie Levine decided she would take photographs of Evans' original 1936 photographs and display her photographs in a gallery. The gallery was more than happy to oblige, since modern curators dig this kind of crap, for reasons I'll explain later.

Pretty dumb, eh? But the fun is just starting. In 2001, another conceptual artist named Michael Mandiberg scanned Evans' original 1936 images. Then he scanned Levine's 1979 photographs of Evans' 1936 photographs. He then set up two different Web sites, each featuring a different set of scans, with downloadable certificates of authenticity, evidently to add further conceptual "weight" to his "piece." The two Web sites look identical. There is no recognizable difference between any of the photographs. Even the site design is identical. And of course that's all part of the concept.

Now how much would you pay? But wait, there's more! In 2001, another conceptual artist named Kendall Bruns downloaded all the images from the Michael Mandiberg site and set up his own mirror site featuring his own copies of Mandiberg's scanned images of Levine's photographs of Evans' photographs of Alabama sharecroppers. Or was it merely Bruns' copies of Mandiberg's scanned images of Evans' photographs of Alabama sharecroppers, thus leaving Levine's iteration out of the remix altogether? Things get a little sketchy at this point. But one thing is certain. There are now three Web sites at three different URLs that look identical. There are three conceptual artists (one in 1979 and two in 2001) feeling very clever and smug. There are several museums, graduate arts programs, and online galleries buying into this crap. And there's only one actual "artist" anywhere to be found, way back in 1936.

First, I'll explain why this type of conceptual art is poor (if I may be allowed a value judgment). Then, I'll hazard a guess as to why this kind of conceptual art is as widely accepted as it is.

1. WHY CONCEPTUAL ART SUCKS

Without the artist statements that accompany and explain the point of these three Web sites, the sites themselves would seem like three identical online versions of a 1936 photo documentary by Walker Evans. So the "art" of this art lies primarily—dare I say, solely—in the idea that the artist statements convey. This is why the stuff is called conceptual art. Conceptual artists believe that by making the idea the art, they have escaped the bonds of the art object, they have bypassed the skill necessary to make the art object, and they have superseded all the other "base machinations" that have historically been associated with art.

"Conceptual art is 'pure' art!" the conceptual artist blithely boasts. "We have escaped the confines of media-assisted communication. We are now trafficking in the realm of pure thought, mind to mind." Digital conceptual artists are the worst, because they further muck up their theory with pedantic odes to the binary muse, the ethereal cloud of information, the uber-cyber-mind, and all that other extropian garbledy-goop.

The sad and very pertinent fact is this: Conceptual artists haven't escaped the confines of media. They've simply chosen a very crude and rudimentary form of media—the artist statement—and they've chosen to channel all of their "pure" ideas through that thin and puny medium. Without the artist statement, the concept simply ain't shared. The conceptual artist would resent this observation, countering that the artist statement is merely incidental, and not part of the art itself. The conceptual artist would have us believe that any resident physical objects are merely incidental (in this example, Evans' original 1936 photographs); that the artist statement is incidental; and all that's left is the pure concept itself. Very convenient, but a simple removal of the artist statement proves that it is the very vehicle through which the "pure" concept is transferred. Conceptual artists may say their artist statements are incidental, but conceptual artists are wrong.

This is why conceptual art is poor art. With abstract oil painting, the artist is communicating in the media of color, shape, texture, canvas and paints. With abstract multimedia art, the artist is communicating in the media of sound, light, spoken words, patters, rhythms, series, written words, etc. Note that with these forms of historically defined "real" art, the artist is still conceptual. He is still sharing a concept. The "real" artist owns the fact that we can't read his mind. He further recognizes the fact that written words alone can't "say" enough. So he learns and masters speaking to us via other more visceral, emotional channels besides mere prose. The real artist embraces the fact that a pure idea cannot be transferred from one person to another without first being encoded into some form of media. Accepting that fact, he masters the medium of his choice, and he send his "concept" to us on waves that connect with our whole being, not just our analytical minds. Bravo.

Whereas the conceptual artist can only strike our minds. His chosen medium (although he won't admit it) is prose, and a very pedantic, mechanical, and unpoetic form of prose at that. (Just re-read the first three paragraphs of this essay and you'll experience my point.) Wanting to escape the confines of media and traffic in the realm of pure idea, the conceptual artist inadvertently winds up trafficking in one of the thinnest, non-resonant, distracting forms of media yet contrived—the artist statement.

To make an analogy, the "real" artist is a 7-foot tall, dreadlocked drum and bass DJ broadcasting via radio, satellite, broadband and cable. The "conceptual" artist is a little 12-year-old kid mumbling into a paper cup, all the while imagining that he is practicing some sort of radical new form of telepathic communication. That's why I say that conceptual art, in its "pure" unadulterated form, is poor art.

2. WHY CONCEPTUAL ART IS SO POPULAR

Here I must digress into a bit of psychological guesswork, but I think I'm right.

Conceptual art is popular for three main reasons:

a) Conceptual art increases the role of curators and art critics, so they choose to promote it and write about it because everybody wants to be more important than they really are.

b) Post-modern relativism is afraid to call anything bad, so conceptual art sneaks in the back door and the relativist art critics are bootless to kick it out.

c) Conceptual artists are lazy, untalented, or both. They don't want to invest the time to learn the skills to make good art. Or maybe they tried and they just couldn't do it. So they turned to thinking of ideas and writing artist statements.

a) Before, with real art, curators and art critics were mere servants of the art. The art object was center stage, the artist was only slightly left of center (more or less, depending on your particular critical emphasis), and the curators and critics were somewhere in the wings. Now, with conceptual art, it's all about the event and the context. The art object (with all of its multi-sensory ability to convey emotions/ideas/concepts/truths) is now banished to the wings, and the artist is either left of center, or more often, he has assumed the treble role of artist/curator/critic, and is sharing center stage with a sycophantic entourage of curators, contextualizers, event hosts, essayists and critical pundits.

What heady stuff this conceptual art is to a curator! "Art" becomes a sort of staged political event to prove some sort of conceptual point, usually in dialogue with the modern art community itself. And since the curator is the figurehead of the modern art community, he has a very central role to play in "the concept." Even if the conceptual art seems to ridicule and shun the curator, in fact it always embraces him by the very fact that it is conceptual. If this were not the case, conceptual artists would just go don some scuba gear, swim about in a public fountain noticed only by a few disinterested passers-by, and return home with the satisfaction of a conceptual job well done. No, the difference between a conceptual artist and a lunatic is that the former is in dialogue with a curator, and the latter is in dialogue with the voices that won't leave him alone. Ironically, if any art ever needed a gallery, conceptual art does. And the fame-hungry curator is more than happy to oblige.

What heady stuff this conceptual art is to an art critic! After all, the artist statement is now the central and sole medium. And aren't the critical essay and the artist statement kissing cousins? Hot dog! No more trying to figure out what the art means! Now the art critic can play a part in defining what the art means. And who better to join in all this conceptual, linguistic fun than the champing-at-the-bit-to-be-witty-and-insightful post-modern art critic?

In the '50s, post-structuralist literary criticism freed the then subservient literary critic by empowering him to write about his own agenda, regardless of what the text he was reviewing at the time was actually saying. Thus the critic became the creator (albeit the creator of a mind-numbingly convoluted type of intellectual prose). Now the modern art critic can join in the "creative" fun as well with conceptual art! No more subservience to the art object or to the artist. Simply stick to expounding on conceptual art, make sure you dismiss real art as passé, and now you too are the star! Meanwhile the art patrons evacuate in droves. But never mind them. The art critics are so punch drunk from finally getting to actively participate somehow in all of this art stuff, heck, they just don't care.

b) I won't belabor this point, but when relativism tied the hands of anyone to say, "This is good. This is bad. This is pretty. This is ugly," the conceptualists were free to run amok.

c) If the conceptual artist wants to be an artist so badly, why doesn't he just learn how to make real art? My hunch is that learning how to make real art is too hard for him. Learning to communicate something valuable and worthy, whether visually or poetically or aurally or whatever, takes a lifetime of devotion. And even then, some people can do it and some people can't.

Like Salieri in Amadeus, the conceptual artist is given the ability to appreciate greatness, but he is cursed with the inability to create greatness himself. So he takes the short track to fame and goes conceptual. Salieri was born too soon. Scheming, jealous, petty, vain, able to manipulate public opinion—Salieri could have written his own ticket as a self-pimping conceptual artist, a post-modern art critic, a pseudo-intellectual graduate professor in cross-media studies, a cliquish gallery curator, or any number of lesser titles in the wack-wack-wacky world of contemporary art. And Mozart? He would have been just another populist Jon Bon Jovi.

Some would argue that conceptual art is really more like an irritant, a conversation starter, a stunt to get people to think. That's cool. So take it to the streets, protest, write essays, be political. Meanwhile, give me back my tax money, stop teaching my children, and use your galleries to send concepts down fatter and more emotive media pipes than the thin mumbo jumbo prose of some hackneyed artist statement written by some wannabe who never made any real art.

(If I may be allowed a value judgment.)

Copyright © 2001 Curt Cloninger. All Rights Reserved.

Curt Cloninger is at lab404 if you need him.