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Conclusions

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Image and Text in Conceptual Art
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Abstract

Chapter 6 summarises the contribution of conceptual art to artistic practice and art theory, and reiterates art’s critical potential. Conceptual art demonstrated a mode of interrogating the systems of apprehension, classification and evaluation by working around the frame of reference, and opened up the space of art as a social space. Amidst competing interests and historiographical tropes, it demonstrated the dialectical relationship between the work and the world, between art and criticism, and between the object in question and the writing of history. Conceptual art also problematised the object of art in relation to theory and drew to the surface the implications of writing about art and “doing” art history. Chapter 6 moreover reflects on the book’s methodology and reviews the current state of affairs in terms of art and criticism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Marx’s (1938 [1845–46]) 11th thesis on Feuerbach reads: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”.

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Kalyva, E. (2016). Conclusions. In: Image and Text in Conceptual Art. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45086-5_6

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