Conceptual Art and Philippine Rituals

Lesson 1 : CONCEPTUAL ART I. Introduction Conceptual art is a movement that prized ideas over the formal or visual components of art works. An amalgam of various tendencies rather than a tightly cohesive movement, Conceptualism took myriad forms, such as performances, happenings, and ephemera. From the mid-1960s through the mid 1970's Conceptual artists produced works and writings that completely rejected standard ideas of art. Their chief claim - that the articulation of an artistic idea suffices as a work of art - implied that concerns such as aesthetics, expression, skill and marketability were all irrelevant standards by which art was usually judged. So drastically simplified, it might seem to many people that what passes for Conceptual art is not in fact "Art" at all, much as Jackson Pollock's "drip" paintings, or Andy Warhol's Billow Boxes (1964), seemed to contradict what previously had passed for art. But, it is important to understand Conceptual art in a succession of avant-garde movements (Cubism, Dada, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, etc.) that succeeded in self-consciously expanding the boundaries of Art. Conceptualists put themselves at the extreme end of this avant-garde tradition. In truth, it is irrelevant whether this extremely intellectual kind of art matches one's personal views of what art should be, because the fact remains that Conceptual artists successfully redefined the concept of a work of art to the extent that their efforts are widely accepted as art by collectors, gallery owners and museum curators. II. Conceptual Art Defined Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions. This method was fundamental to LeWitt's definition of Conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print: In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. Sol LeWitt Tony Godfrey, author of "Conceptual Art" (1998), asserts that conceptual art questions the nature of art, a notion that Joseph Kosuth elevated to a definition of art itself in his seminal, early manifesto of conceptual art, "Art after Philosophy" (1969). The notion that art should examine its own nature was already a potent aspect of (the influential art critic) Clement Greenberg's vision of Modern art during the 1950s. With the emergence of an exclusively language-based art in the 1960s, however, conceptual artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner and the English Art & Language group began a far more radical interrogation of art than was previously possible (see below). One of the first and most important things they questioned was the common assumption that the role of the artist was to create special kinds of material objects. Through its association with the Young British Artists and the Turner Prize during the 1990s, in popular usage, particularly in the UK, "conceptual art" came to denote all contemporary art that does not practice the traditional skills of painting and sculpture. It could be said that one of the reasons why the term "conceptual art" has come to be associated with various contemporary practices far removed from its original aims and forms lies in the problem of defining the term itself. As the artist Mel Bochner suggested as early as 1970, in explaining why he does not like the epithet "conceptual", it is

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not always entirely clear what "concept" refers to, and it runs the risk of being confused with "intention." Thus, in describing or defining a work of art as conceptual it is important not to confuse what is referred to as "conceptual" with an artist's "intention." III. History of Conceptual Art Beginnings One of the most important precedents for Conceptual art was the work of Dada artist Marcel Duchamp, who in the early twentieth century established the idea of the "readymade" - the found object that is simply nominated or chosen by the artist to be a work of art, without adaptations to the object beyond a signature. The first and most famous true readymade, is Fountain (1917), which was nothing more than a porcelain urinal, reoriented ninety degrees, placed on a stand and signed and dated under an alias, "R. Mutt." Duchamp described his readymades as "anti-retinal," and dismissed the popular conception that works of art need demonstrate either artistic skill or originality. In the 1950s, long after several of his original readymades had been lost, Duchamp re-issued Fountain and other of his lost readymades on behalf of the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York. These acts sparked a resurgence of interest in his work, which not only brought the emergence of Neo-Dada led by John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, but also rekindled a widespread interest in ideabased art throughout the contemporary art world. Fluxus and Minimalism to Conceptualism While the late 1950s witnessed modern art's progressive shift from Abstract Expressionism to Neo-Dada and Pop, the late 1960s witnessed a similar shift, only this time from Fluxus and Minimalism to Conceptualism. Fluxus began in the early sixties, and has many affinities with Dada. Embracing "flux" or change as an essential element of life, Fluxus artists aimed to integrate art and life, using any found objects and sounds, simple activities and situations stimuli. George Maciunas, Alan Kaprow, and composer John Cage are important Fluxus figures who would impact Conceptual art. Adding to Conceptual art's diverse genealogy, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Robert Morris and other Minimalist artists who emerged in the mid 1960s extended modernist abstraction by embracing repetition, formal simplification, and industrial fabrication of their artworks. Judd and others rejected much that was traditional in creating works that occupied space differently, often on a scale too large for a pedestal or home, and usually made of non-artistic materials (like bricks or sheets of steel) the production of which was out-sourced. A number of burgeoning artists during this time - including Ian Burn, Dan Graham, Mel Ramsden - paid close attention to the paradigm shifts inherent in Fluxus and Minimalism, seeing that a so-called work of art was not dependent upon the object/work itself, and that it could therefore exist chiefly as an idea. Most saw their works in direct defiance of the art market, with its promotion of artistic personalities, and rare and original "masterpieces."

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LeWitt's "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" In 1967, Sol LeWitt published "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" (considered by many to be the movement's manifesto), in which he wrote: "What the work of art looks like isn't too important. It has to look like something if it has physical form. No matter what form it may finally have it must begin with an idea. It is the process of conception and realization with which the artist is concerned." The notion of placing concept before object, and the importance of realization over any aesthetic concerns, importantly contradicted the theories and writings of formalist art critics like Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried, whose work focused chiefly on the examination of objects, materials, colors and forms - had helped to define the aesthetic criteria of the preceding generation of artists. Wiener's "Declaration of Intent" Conceptual art was taken to the extremes of art as idea, for instance by Lawrence Wiener in his 1968 "Declaration of Intent," which declared he would cease the practice of creating physical art, citing no need to build something when the idea behind any work of art should suffice, since the artist's intent remains the same (or should, ideally), regardless of whether the work is in physical form or merely conceptual. The Formation of the Movement While conceptualism forever remained a disparate group of international artists harboring a great many ideas about contemporary art, by the late 1960s it was somewhat evident that a loose movement was coalescing. In 1968 a series of Conceptual art exhibitions vigorously promoted the movement in New York, put together by the dealer and curator Seth Siegelaub. And, in 1969, New York's Museum of Modern Art gathered together a number of artists from the so-called movement for an exhibition entitled "Information." This event was not to be taken without a grain of salt, since Conceptualism was largely critical of the institutional museum system and its market-driven interests, sensing that such institutions and their investors collectively shared far too much cultural sway and political power. Artist Collectives Emerge In 1967 a collective of British artists, led by Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge and others, formed the group Art & Language while teaching art in Coventry, England. Through a series of published journals - entitled Art-Language - and espoused an outspoken distaste for entanglement of modern art and the marketplace. In the April 1975 issue of Artforum, artist Ian Burn (who along with Mel Ramsden co-founded the short-lived Society for Theoretical Art and Analyses in 1969) published an essay entitled "The Art Market: Affluence and Degradation," in which he wrote on the state of contemporary art: "Not only do works of art end up as commodities, but there is also an overwhelming sense in which works of art start off as commodities." Over the next several years, such experimental artists as Joseph Kosuth, Terry Smith and Mel Ramsden would join the group, whose rotating membership would reach approximately 50 artists before its dwindling in the late 1970's Other artist collectives were similarly political in their focus. The Canadian group General Idea had a small memebership of three artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who embraced

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ephemeral works and installations. Active from 1967 to 1994, in the 1980's their works addressed the pharmaceutical industry and the AIDS crisis. Latin American artists found Conceptualism an effective pathway to creativity and political opposition. In Latin America, Conceptualism was particularly appealing as it was not an imported style, per se, but rather a means of expression with no single frame of reference, whether cultural, aesthetic, or ideological. Artists collectives provided anonymity, and thus protection from prosecution by oppressive authorities, and the opportunity to make strong social statements. The Chilean group CADA (Art Action Collective) and the Peruvian group Parenthesis exemplify this trend Art as Idea Among the first to pursue the notion of idea-based art to its logical conclusion was Joseph Kosuth, who evolved a highly analytical model premised on the notion that art must continually question its own purpose. Advocating his ideas most famously in a three-part essay entitled "Art after Philosophy" (1969), Kosuth argued that it was necessary to abandon traditional media in order to pursue this self-criticism. He questioned the notion that art necessarily needed to be manifested in a visual form - indeed, whether it needed to be manifested in any physical form at all. Many, like Lawrence Weiner similarly stated the need to relinquish the practice of creating physical works of art. By striving to minimize the materiality of art, artists strove to remove aesthetic criteria and the commodity status out of the artistic equation. The "dematerialization of art object," as the art critic Lucy Lippard described the tendency in the chronicle of Conceptualism (Six Years: the Dematerializaiton of the Art Object), thus had a subtle political undercurrent. Conceptual art ideas often evoked dispersal (instead of formation), and voiding (instead of creation), and many of the Conceptual artistic ideas were open-ended propositions that lacked foregone conclusions. For instance, Lawrence Wiener's "Statements" of 1968, include "A field created by structured simultaneous TNT explosions" and "One standard dye marker thrown into the sea," and epitomize the open-ended and hence anti-authoritarian stance of the movement. As Wiener explained in his "Declaration of Intent" (1968-9), "Art that imposes conditions - human or otherwise - on the receiver for its appreciation in my eyes constitutes aesthetic fascism." Language as Art Although the use of text in art was nothing new by the 1960s - text appears alongside other visual elements in Cubist paintings, for example - artists such as Weiner, Kosuth, Ed Ruscha, and John Baldessari adopted used text as the chief element of a visual work of art. Unlike their predecessors, this generation had pursued college degrees, which in part accounts for their intellectualism and the influence in particular of recent studies in linguistics As Larry Flint explained in his groundbreaking 1963 essay, "concept art" aims at articulating the artistic idea in a boiled-down or essential way: "'Concept art' is first of all an art of which the material is 'concepts,' as the material of for ex. music is sound. Since 'concepts' are closely bound up with language, concept art is a kind of art of which the material is language." The language used was meant to signify itself and an artistic idea. Text-based art would often use abstract formulations, often in the form of abrupt commands, ambiguous statements, or just a single word to create associations for viewer. While first-wave conceptualists like Weiner and Baldessari remain active today, they inspired younger artists, from

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Jenny Holzer to Tracy Emin, to continue the practice of language-based art and to push the boundaries of art and its definitions. Anti-commodification and Institutional Critique If Conceptual art had a central tenant that united all artists under one banner, it was surely their shared discomfort with the institutionalized state of the art world, as arbiter of constituted "good" vs. "bad" art. The artistic gatekeepers had been guided largely by market concerns since the midninetieth century, such that "good" art was marketable, and "bad" art was deemed not. The beneficiaries of this system were a small group of (mostly male and white) artists, and members of an elite social class who sold and collected the work, or who participated in the administration of museums. In the 1960's, there was the sense that, if art caters to this world, then it will surely not strive to challenge any status quo, or be avant-garde. Conceptual artists and theorists, such as Ian Burn, looked closely at modern art practices and trends during the 1960s and early 1970s, seeking any form of radical theory or aesthetics, instead found largely a continuation of abstract, post-abstract and minimalist motifs. "What can you expect to challenge in the real world," wrote Burn in the pages ofArtforum in 1975, "with 'colour', 'edge', 'process', systems, modules, etc. as your arguments? Can you be any more than a manipulated puppet if these are your 'professional' arguments?" The late 1960's witnessed the emergence of a form of Conceptualism that has come to be known as institutional critique, practiced by artists such as Hans Haacke (arguably its pioneer), Michael Asher, Fred Wilson, Daniel Buren, and Marcel Broodthaers. Institutional critique continued the tradition of idea-based art, but usually in the form of installations that implicitly questioned on the assumed function of the museum--i.e. the benevolent preservation and exhibition of masterpieces by providing a view to its greater role within society at large (eg. as arbitor of taste, as investor, as tax shelter, and gatekeeper to artistic success). The museum is not a neutral hall for the exhibition of works and education of the public. Rather, it is invested in promoting certain artists, in selecting "important" works of art, and in shaping the economic reality that benefits its trustees and the established art world. The inherent complexity of institutional critique is that it was often staged within the very institutions that artists were critiquing, as with Hans Haacke's MoMA Poll (1970). At times, the success of a particular work relied on the participation of viewers, thus demonstrating that the work, like the "art world" includes viewers as well as artists and the institutions that host them. Thus it is important to note that rather than simply negating or rejecting the institution, these artists often implicated themselves, and sought to bring awareness to complex fabric of social and institutional relations. Challenges to Authorship When Marcel Duchamp nominated a urinal as a work of art, and reissued later editions of his readymades, he delivered clear blows to the West's collective notion of artistic creativity. In keeping with this model, Sol LeWitt's "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," advocated the idea that the work need not necessarily be fully 'authored' by the artist. "When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. " This idea of an automated or machine-like

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execution of the art-idea symptomatic of Conceptualism at large. For instance, in Vito Acconci's Following Piece (1969), the artist subjected his vision to an outside force: the random movements of strangers that he followed on the street until they disappeared into private space. The parameters of the work (the piece's mission, the documentation method) were decided in advance by Acconci, but the resulting the shape and subjects (the exact people, number of photographs, specific locations, etc) resulted from the decisions made by randomly selected individuals and were thus exempt from Acconci's agency. This denial of the artist as "master" and sole creator of the work also translates to many posthumous works with which the artist's name is associated, but where he/she is not the fabricator. LeWitt in particular, who passed away in 2007, was survived by a number of unrealized sketches for sculptural and other works of art, which to this day are often created anew by teams of fabricators and assistants, thus allowing brand new LeWitt works to be made even while the artist is dead. Such fabrication in the name of the artist echoes prior modern art practices, particularly in sculpture (the Estate of Auguste Rodin is a well-known example of posthumous artistic production). While authorship is, strictly speaking, a component of LeWitt's posthumously issued works, the practice flies in the face of traditional notions of craft and mastery. Photo-conceptualism Photo-conceptualism is a persistent trend associated with Conceptualism. Conceptual artists often relied on documentation of their ideas, and photography was a convenient means to this end. Photography could be integrated into the concept or system that the artist devised, just as a diagram or a text could illustrate it. In this sense, the documentation is the work of art, and vice versa, and because of this the usual hierarchical distinction between "work" and "document" - where the former is considered more important than the latter - is undone. In counter distinction to many art photographers, Conceptualists were not concerned with photographic quality, whether determined by the print, composition, lighting or editing. Furthermore, their dryly-objective approach resulted in photographs that prevent access to the artist's personality, and which prevent a strong emotional response from the viewer. Edward Ruscha's matter-of-fact photographs of "Every Building on the Sunset Strip," which he methodically produced with a camera strapped to his pickup truck (and published in a fold-out format book in 1966) exemplify this artistically anti-expressive approach to creating photo-conceptual works. Later Developments Although the model of Conceptual art promoted by Joseph Kosuth and Art & Language might be seen as the epitome of the movement - others explored avenues that were arguably as influential. Conceptual art sidestepped conventions of craftsmanship and style to an extent that it could be said to place renewed emphasis on content, which had been largely banished under critical emphasis on form. Emergent during a period of tremendous major social upheaval, Conceptualism's central tenant - that the idea is paramount - found broad application by artists wishing to emphasize diverse social issues. The social issues addressed by international artists such as Hans Haacke, Martha Rosler,

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Jenny Holzer, Luis Caminzer and Alfredo Jaar, and Ai Weiwei , include labor and gender relations, museum stewardship, and poverty and censorship. While the movement often emphasized the social construction of the work of art, Conceptualism was not populist and had limited popularity outside of the art world due to it being perceived as arcane. Furthermore, fractures began to develop in the movement by the mid 1970's leading to the dissolution of the movement. Still, it eventually became inspiration to subsequent postConceptual artists, many of whom embraced the material basis of art and the langue of visual culture (such as the so-called Pictures generation led by Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince. Others continued to sidestep traditional artistic production through Performance Art or installations. Thus, many of the concerns, and something of its austere style and tactics endure to this day in the works of a wide variety of today's artists, including Andrea Fraser, Tino Seghal, Gabriel Orozco, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Glen Ligon, and Damien Hirst. . IV. Core Characteristics of Conceptual Art The first quintessential conceptual artwork was Erased de Kooning Drawing(1953) by Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) which, as the name indicates, is a drawing by the Abstract Expressionist Willem De Kooning (1904-97) which Rauschenberg erased. The work raises interesting questions about the meaning of art. Is the erasure of another artist's work a creative act? Is the finished product as important or more important than the idea behind it? And so on. The work itself now resides in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Emerging as an international art form during the 1960s and 1970s during the era of Pop-Art, and the Italian movement Arte Povera, its profile was raised significantly by 'Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects' - the first art exhibition in America devoted exclusively to conceptualism, which was hosted by the New York Cultural Center. Participants included Sol LeWitt (b.1928) and Joseph Kosuth (b.1945), who both exemplified the conceptualist notion that genuine art is not a unique or valuable physical object created by the physical skill of the artist - like a drawing, painting or sculpture - but instead is a concept or an idea. Sol LeWitt, the High Priest of Conceptualism attached great importance to the primacy of 'the idea', admitting in his Paragraphs on Conceptual Art (1967) that "all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art." His attitude can be illustrated by the fact that many of his works can be constructed by anyone who follows his written instructions. Another highly influential pioneer of conceptual art was Andy Warhol (1928-87), who used conceptualism in several different artforms. Conceptual artists link their work to a tradition of Marcel Duchamp, whose readymades had rattled the very definition of the work of art. Like Duchamp before them, they abandoned beauty, rarity, and skill as measures of art. Conceptual artists recognize that all art is essentially conceptual. In order to emphasize this many Conceptual artists reduced the material presence of the work to an absolute minimum a tendency that some have referred to as the "dematerialization" of the work of art.

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Conceptual artists were influenced by the brut simplicity of Minimalism, but they rejected Minimalism's embrace of the conventions of sculpture and painting as mainstays of artistic production. For Conceptual artists, art need not look like a traditional work of art, or even take any physical form at all. The analysis of art that was pursued by many Conceptual artists encouraged them to believe that if the artist began the artwork, the museum or gallery and the audience in some way completed it. This category of Conceptual art is known as 'institutional critique,' which can be understood as part of an even greater shift away from emphasizing the object-based work of art, to pointedly expressing cultural values of society at large. Much Conceptual art is self-conscious or self-referential, like Duchamp and other modernists, they created art that is about art, and pushed its limits by using minimal materials and even text.

V. Famous Conceptual Artist A. Billy Apple (Born 1935) Billy Apple, a New Zealand modern artist, has been a pioneer in the modern art movement of conceptual art. He won a national art gallery scholarship in 1959 to study at the Royal College of Art in London. Once his scholarship was complete he lived in New York for 25 years. Billy Apple returned to New Zealand in the 1970s when he started to work on sculptural and architectural modern art works. His earlier work was inline with the modern art movement of pop art and he was a good friend of Andy Warhol. Once his Pop art period was complete, Billy Apple's modern art art work became quintessential examples of conceptual art and takes into account connotations between meaning and vision. B. Michael Asher (Born 1943) Michael Asher is an American conceptual artist and lives in Los Angeles. Michael Ashers philosophy regarding the modern art movement of conceptual art is one that realises that no individual art object has a universal meaning. Other conceptual artists also share this belief and Michael Asher was a pioneer in this area. He realised the importance in the relationship between an item of art and the gallery space that it sits in. His works highlights this relationship between art, material and space. C. John Baldessari (Born 1931) John Baldessari is an American conceptual artist who lives in Santa Monica, California. Baldessari taught at the California institute of arts in Valencia until 1990 and is currently a professor of art and teaches at the UCLA.

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John Baldessari has a unique style of conceptual art whereby he adds hand painted colour to photographs almost as if he is applying a censorship to the figures and objects within those photographs. D. Vanessa Beecroft (Born 1969) Vanessa Beecroft was born in Italy and moved to New York Beecroft's style of artwork is geared around interactions between posing humans. These interactions range from holy representations through to political representations. She uses photography to capture the portraits. Vanessa Beecroft's belief is to bring more females into art and to shift the emphasis away from nudes as currently around 80% of all women in art are nudes. E. Joseph Beuys (1921 1986) Joseph Beuys was a German born artist whos career peaked in the 1960s. Beuys's philosophy was one that emphasised the point that art doesn't need to be attractive and celebrated for its beauty. Joseph Beuys's conceptual art rejects academic viewpoints focused towards craft and beauty. His art is intended to do the opposite of duplicating what the eye sees. Joseph Beuys's artwork is beautiful but in an unconventional sense of the word beauty. His artwork has a beauty that is far more intense and which is hidden within mystery. F. Mel Bochner (Born 1940) Mel Bochner, an American conceptual artist born in Pittsburgh. Bochner graduated from Carnegie Institute of technology and holds a doctorate of fine arts. Bochner has been a pioneer in the modern art movement of conceptual art. Bochners style of conceptual art revolved around and quizzed the abstract element of measurement. In Bochner's art you can see that the artist has come from a technological background. Bochner's art uses, geometry, lighting, and measurement to convey his message. G. Marcel Broodhaers (1924 1976) Marcel Broodthaers was born in Brussels and started life as a poet. Marcel Broodthaers concentrated on the meaning of art context. Broodthaers opened a private museum at his home in 1969 where he exhibited his exhibition of items manufactured from nailed boxes. Marcel Broodthaers took Rene Magritte's analysis of semantics and syntax of language and image one stage further and incorporated photography and film into the analysis.

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Broodthaers' work consists of an interesting fusion between conceptual art and surrealism. This fusion creates an exciting unique effect.

H. Marcel Duchamp (1887 1968) Marcel Duchamp is arguably the most famous conceptual artist. Born in France, moved to the USA and became an American citizen in 1955. Marcel Duchamp had a large influence on post war art including the Dada art movement and Surrealist art movement, which his name is normally associated with. Many of Marcel Duchamp's art works that were classified as Dadaist or Surrealist nowadays would be categorised as Conceptual art. Marcel Duchamp's early works were very much influenced by the Post impressionist styles of Vincent Van Gough and Paul Cezanne. Duchamps style then progressed and developed into Fauvism and then Cubism. Once finding his feet in the Cubism modern art movement he became friends with Francis Picabia a poet who was connected to Man Ray. At the time Man Ray was developing the Dada manifesto. Marcel Duchamp joined the early discussions involving the ideas and concepts of Dadism. Marcel Duchamp aligned himself with the Dada modern art movement where he created his most famous art works such as 'fountain' and his Bicycle wheel that was lost and never recovered. I. Tracey Emin (Born 1963) Tracey Emin is one of the so called 'Young British Artists' (YBAs), a group of young conceptual artists from Britain that were discovered and propelled into the modern art limelight by the likes of Charles Saatchi Tracey Emin is currently among the most famous (still alive) artists of today. She hit the household artist category when she displayed her exhibit My Bed at the 1999 Turner Prize exhibition. 'My Bed' consisted of Emin's unmade bed with blood stained sheets and used condoms. Tracey Emin studied art at the Royal College of Art, London and took her initial influences from the likes of Edvard Munch. This initial period of painting was a troublesome time in her life and Emin destroyed the paintings of this period in her art career. Tracey Emin's most famous pieces are installations but she is starting to paint again, as at 2007. She exhibited paintings at the 2007 Venice Biennale and was seen as a success. J. Yves Klein (1928 1962) Yves Klein was born in Nice he studies at the Ecole Nationale de la Marine Marchande and the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales. He became friends with Arman Fernandez and Claude Pascal and discovered his love for painting. Yves Klein traveled during 1948 to 1952 and visited Britain, Italy, Spain and Japan. He settled in Paris where he was given his first solo exhibition at Club des Solitaires in 1956.

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Yves Klein is known well for his blue period and his plain colour, textured canvases. A greater proportion of his art, however was conceptual art.