Conceptual art questions

1. The viewer is extremely important in conceptual art because it is the viewer who asks the questions. There are questions like "what does this mean?" and the answers are particularly individual. They are individual because the answers will vary depending on the circumstances of the viewer. It is the meaning that is important in conceptual art, and not so much the materials or how it is arranged. With out the viewer's intake or questioning the concept wouldn't exist.

2. I think that it was hard for people to accept Fountain by Duchamp as art because it is a urinal. A ready made and not something that he crafted. a urinal is an everyday object (well for men anyway) and people don't go to a public bathroom and associate a urinal, something that is used to relive one's self, as a work of art. When people saw this piece in a museum it raised the question "Is this art?" and made veiwers look at an everyday object in a not so everyday way. Duchamp forced people to look at a urinal as a piece of fine art and I think that the traditional people had a hard time recognizing it as art.

3.Duchamp posed the question, "Could this urinal be an artwork?" with his Fountain and he asked the viewer to "Try and imagine this reproduction of the Mona Lisa with a beard as an artwork, not just a defaced reproduction of an artwork, but as an artwork in its own right." with his LHOOQ. People assumed that art would have to be either a painting or a sculpture but when his readymades came out it forced the viewer to have to redefine art.

4.It is difficult to categorize conceptual art in the context of traditional art because it is not defined by medium or style but rather the concept the viewer has upon seeing the piece. conceptual art is reflexive - "I am thinking about how I think." it represents a state of continual self-critique. ---page 5

5. Page 7 - "It is, arguably, a tradition based on the critical spirit, although the use of the word 'tradition' is paradoxical given the opposition of much Conceptual art to the very notion of tradition. Although I seek in the following pages to give a clear, lively and honest introduction to the continuing history of Conceptual art, I can not and will not want to be prescriptive. in the last resort you will have to decide what you believe, just as in engaging with any example of Conceptual art it is the response of you, the viewer, that defines the work."

This is in the last bit of the reading I really like how the author ended this because obviously he can not decide what is considered art to the reader. He leaves it open for the reader what is considered art. What do you define as art? He leaves this question open with a last piece by Annette Lemieux (which is at the top of the page).