Today’s musing is going to be about concept art. I know many people outside the art world do not see the value of concept as art but I am absolutely convinced that art is no more than a pretty image without an “idea” behind it. So today I am going to tell about how I met Pepon Osorio (with no clue of how important he was) and fell in love with installations and concept art.

Once upon a time after I had been studying poetry writing at the UPR for a few years I randomly found a flier advertising the opening of the new art building. There would be a workshop on installation building with Pepon Osorio. I decided to go and met a hyper active, grouchy, bossy older man (Osorio) who was constantly shouting. It was more an assistantship than a workshop but I did learn quite a bit. We started with conceptualization and the idea that the piece should be silver. We used recycled materials and built a large chandelier type thing and covered rocks in tin foil. This was the point where I began to realize that anything and everything could be art. It was also where I learned about the art school I eventually attended. I did not enjoy the experience at the time and have only recently come to understand how valuable the experience was and to what extent it shaped my view of art.

I think (this is purely my view and probably not shared by other artists) that conceptualization and intent is an essential part of any art piece. But when it comes to concept art, the idea is everything. The physical aspect of the piece can be anything but without that idea (usually expressed in the choice of name) the piece is meaningless and IMO, without any value. The thing I absolutely hate about concept art is that it has become an excuse to show crappy, half assed work with no thinking behind it. The industry seems willing to accept anything under the term “concept art” without analysis or thought and this, to me, is immensely stupid. The whole POINT of concept art is to make you think, analyze, question, justify, rationalize and even argue about the art. It is not to write a 7 page rationalization or justification of your crappy piece. If I can not find a meaning in a piece with the name, observing it and reading the same short blurb any other piece would get, well, the piece was probably not very well conceptualized and it isn’t clear. I mean, we don’t all have to come to the same conclusion or perspective but we should all be able to come to A conclusion or perspective without reading some long rationalization.

After the workshop with Pepon (Textos Entretejidos: Instalacion/Perfomance/Memoria 2004) I did some research on him and learned a bit more about his work. He is an installation artist who makes surprisingly complex pieces and got his start as a social worker. I think this background gives his work an emotional depth that I haven’t seen in other work. His work centers on the family, politics and culture and IMO communicates emotions rather powerfully.

As for specific concept pieces that I find effective, I thought I’d bring up Hirst since I have been researching him for another post. In general I find Hirst work to be very over rated and overpriced but I did come across one piece of his that I liked and a deconstruction of one of his pieces by another artist. “A Thousand Years,” Hirst’s piece in which generations of flies are born and die while consuming rotting meat in an enclosed glass box. The concept is of life and death is one that has always interested me and along with the short, meaningful name, I think it is a perfect example of a well thought out piece of concept art. It is engaging and absolutely commands a response of some kind from the viewer.  The other piece that I was amused by was “Black Sheep” the deconstruction by Mark Bridger of Hirst’s “Away from the Flock” in which Bridger poured black into the formaldehyde tank containing a sheep. I found Bridger’s deconstruction to be more thoughtful and clever than Hirst’s original piece.