Conceptual Art

The Free Online Dictionary, at www.thefreedictionary.com, has this definition:

"Art that is intended to convey an idea or concept to the perceiver and need not involve the creation or appreciation of a traditional art object such as a painting or sculpture."

I couldn't resist running this through Google Talk (at http://douweosinga.com/projects/googletalk) with the seed string "Conceptual art is". The result began,

"Conceptual art is a way of life is a Dream. deeply rooted in the Land of the Free..."

You guys must go play with Google Talk... it's very interesting and often howlingly funny.

It is art whose primary aspect is the concept of the piece itself, not the planning or execution of it -- that the artistic idea is what is being presented.

The idea is that the physical piece itself is ultimately unimportant, which is why you may find much of conceptual art is often found materials or performance in nature. That is not to say this is all that conceptual art covers, but pointing those common approaches should make the, well, concept of conceptual art easier to grasp.

The Wikipedia has a good overview on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art