The Conceptual Dimension in Art and the Modern Theory of Artistic Value

Abstract

The impact of Marcel Duchamp's readymades on the philosophy of art has been out of all proportion to the interest of the objects themselves-as indeed it should be for these ur-instances of what has come to be called conceptual art. These works and their progeny inspired a radical questioning of traditional art theory, and the resulting revolution consisted of three main theoretical events. First, given that there was nothing especially worth seeing in these art objects, the necessity of the perceptual to the arts was eliminated and its centrality challenged, thus making the conventional term for art theory, aesthetics, a serious misnomer: