Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979

Informative but dull exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the advent and development of conceptual art.

I say informative because it wasn’t that attractive! I’ve never really understood what conceptual art is and the early galleries of this show explained it well but as it developed I lost it again! My summary is that it is about the idea of a piece being more important than its construction but by the end I wondered if this was art or just philosophy expressed in a visual way. It gave me a lot to think about but I’m not sure I wanted any of the pieces in my home!

A common theme seemed to be pictures which were just a black canvas (Malevich has a lot to answer for!). each one needed a long explanation as to what the black canvas represented. Maybe it just represents a canvas painted black! Much of the art seemed to have been a about a time and place was an event rather than an object so these can only be shown in a later exhibition as a photograph which seems a bit of a cheat.

I did however love the square frame in the floor in the first room with a few oranges in it. This had been a pyramid of oranges which visitors were invited to take so changing the art work. However what made it was the Tate notice encouraging you to take one but added “Please do not eat it in the gallery”! It sort of summed up the show!

Closes on 29 August 2016.

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