I am looking for a paper related to the contemporary value and confusion of conceptual art. Is there anyone who understands it, can write it, or has relevant resources on the paper website?

1. Conceptual art has changed people’s traditional views on art, expanded the space for artistic expression, and enriched the language of artistic expression

Conceptual art is different from traditional aesthetic centrism. Centrism is the essence of classical art and formalist art. Classical art believes that art should express harmony, elegance, and ideal beauty. Western modern art believes that the core of artistic expression is ugliness and grotesqueness. It seems that the "ugly" image can fight against the alienated reality. The attitude of contemporary conceptual art is neutral. Art is neither beautiful nor ugly. Beauty, ugliness and art have no natural fixed relationship. Conceptual art does not pay attention to the expression of personal style. In terms of cultural form, conceptual art should belong to the category of post-modernity. It just forms a concept and expresses a feeling through the combination of different materials in life. Of course, concepts should be presented in a way that is different from the way of daily language, so entering the state of artistic language reflects a different ending, and there is a process of "defamiliarization". Art thus distinguishes itself from philosophy and other methods of cultural expression. In China, the influence of conceptual art methods that began in the 1990s is not only reflected in painting, but also in emerging media such as installation, performance, video and other comprehensive art forms. Conceptual art liberates art from traditional "easel" painting, eliminates the plasticity of traditional art, breaks the boundaries between art and non-art, and expands the space for artistic expression. The installation should be said to be the third method that is synonymous with the two-dimensional method of painting and the three-dimensional sculpture method. The difference is that in the first two, the artist uses various art materials to shape the body, while the installation mainly uses the assembly of ready-made products to express concepts and reflect the artist's personal feelings. The entity of art has completely disappeared and shifted to the "conception" of art. Conceptual art not only cancels the image, color, and structure of plastic art, but also cancels painting and sculpture itself. It uses a variety of media and forms that are different from traditional ones. To express and emphasize the author's thoughts and concepts behind the artistic work. Therefore, Western scholars define conceptual art as "art after philosophy." American scholar Arthur Danto believes that "with the advent of the philosophical era of art, visuality has gradually disappeared", "because the existence of art does not have to be the object of viewing." When art is not seen by people, art will inevitably come to an end, and art will end in concepts and philosophy. In addition, conceptual art places great emphasis on audience participation. Conceptual artists believe that the concepts conveyed in their works can only be successful art after they are conveyed to the hearts of the audience, and only the concepts formed after the audience's participation are complete concepts. In a sense, the creator is the organizer of audience participation activities.

2. The critical function of conceptual art

The critical function of conceptual art first includes the criticism of real life, history, and morality. The purpose of conceptual art creation is not only deconstructive games and frolics, but also different from what Western formalism says: "Art is always independent of life." "Art does not express anything else except itself." Through The "autonomy" of art excludes the "heteronomy" of art. Conceptual artists always adhere to the concept of "life is art" and bring their works into life and into the audience. From the perspective of the relationship between art and life, conceptual art is consistent with traditional art. However, conceptual art belongs to the category of post-modern art after all. It has been baptized by deconstruction and post-modernism, and its critical methods and purposes have shown differences with traditional art. Conceptual art does not express the grand narrative or profound critical function of traditional art. Rather, it borrows the methods of Western pop art and installation art and combines them with familiar pop culture symbols to produce a new concept or vision. Impact. Wang Jinsong's photography "Hundred Demolition Pictures" expresses his feelings by photographing various demolition characters left behind during numerous urban demolitions. "Demolition" is accompanied by hope, and "demolition" is accompanied by destruction and even violence. In the artist's works, the circled word "demolition" is a strong word. Wang Qingsong's digital conceptual photography work "Can I Cooperate with You?" uses the composition of the ancient Chinese painting "The Chariot Picture" to change the emperor to a foreigner, and the canopy in the hands of the lady next to him became a billboard for Coca-Cola and McDonald's. . The people in the front of the team who are smaller in the original picture are photojournalists. This work greatly criticizes today's Western-oriented social atmosphere, and also satirizes the master-slave status in tradition. The criticism method reflected in the work clearly has a postmodern and ridiculing comedy mentality. This kind of criticism does not make people feel "painful lessons", but the relief after laughing. Is Wang Guangyi's "The Great Criticism", which juxtaposes images of the "Cultural Revolution" and popular commodity images in contemporary society, really "picking up a pen and using a sword and a gun" to criticize the commodity hegemony of transnational capitalism? Or is all this just pure A joke? Wang Guangyi seemed to give the audience an ambiguous answer.

The critical function of conceptual art is also reflected in the reflection on traditional ways of thinking and thinking. Conceptual art believes that media such as words, paintings, installations, images, and behaviors have no meaning. What is truly meaningful is the existence of thinking itself. The thoughts and concepts in the brain at a certain moment are art in themselves and are not necessarily expressed through media.

Sol LeWitt, the master of American conceptual art, said in the article "A Short Comment on Conceptual Art": "In conceptual art, the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art , which means that all planning and decisions have been completed in advance, and its implementation is just a perfunctory work, and the concept becomes a machine for creating art.” This idea is somewhat similar to Croce's view of art. The difference is that Croce believes that art exists in the image in the mind, while conceptual artists believe that art exists in the concept of the mind. As for whether a medium is needed to transfer the image in the mind, It is no longer important to express the image or concept. In the work "Two Meaningless Blanks" by artist Wang Qiang, he placed two quadrilaterals in the water. One is a fixed-shaped four-sided diagonal wooden frame, and the other is a four-sided diagonal shape of the same size surrounded by ropes. The former is strong and the latter is weak. It seems to give people some kind of hint: the existence of an object we feel depends on the texture of its background. As the famous American art historian Russell said, "Art exists not only in the objects we understand, but also in the way we understand it." Let’s look at Wang Luyan’s installation work “Modified Bicycle”. The author modified the transmission relationship between the chain and the flywheel of an ordinary bicycle. When people ride on it and pedal forward, it moves backwards, which is an inspiration to every practitioner and audience. : "If you want to go forward, go behind" or "go in the opposite direction". Conceptual artists seem to teach us: Traditionally, we look at the world from a "poetic" perspective. Now we look at the world from a "conceptual" perspective. This world is not a manifestation of material form, nor does it have meaning. It needs to be taught in practice. Continuously explore and improve in the actual talent training process. It is a presentation of empathic emotions, but a presentation of concepts. The artist works through meaning, not shape, color or material. Conceptual art blurs the boundaries between art and life, blurs the boundaries between art and philosophy, blurs the boundaries between art, and deepens the trend of "dedifferentiation" in art. While conceptual art focuses on "meaning", it completely eliminates the aesthetics and emotion in traditional art, leaving only the cold organization of conceptual materials.

3. Conceptual art is an important intermediary for communication and dialogue between Chinese contemporary art and world contemporary art.

Conceptual art is an important art form of contemporary art, both in China and in the West. Chinese conceptual art adopts the form of Western pop and installation art, and combines it with cultural symbols familiar to the Chinese public to create a new concept and feeling, thereby strategically raising the issue of China's modern art and cultural identity. Conceptual art has become an important catalyst for the modernization and internationalization of Chinese avant-garde art. Some people believe that the frequent appearance of Chinese contemporary conceptual art in international art exhibitions is just a "spring roll" on the international art platter. What the West is only interested in is China's "political pop" and "puppyism." It is not the inner admiration for Chinese cultural connotations and artistic spirit, but the pleasure of introspection. I think this statement is not unreasonable. This is actually what contemporary Chinese conceptual artists are confused about: "We are facing an international political platter. Spring rolls are a cultural strategy and a politics. So can we make use of this politics? In fact, if they need If you don’t make spring rolls, I will make my own stuff. You can choose or not. I don’t have to go international and I can enjoy myself. But if we want to go international, we must recognize one thing. Thing: He only wants spring rolls, which is something that can’t be helped on the so-called international stage." The contemporary international art exhibition is indeed a card game, and more importantly, the rules of this card game are set by Westerners. If you want to join this card game, you must play the Chinese card. This is correct. The key point is, what kind of Chinese card do we play? Should it really be like what Li Xianting said, art is just a strategy rather than a "big soul"? Obviously, Li Xianting is opposing strategy to the "big soul" here. Is it true? Is it necessary to sacrifice the "big soul" of art to achieve a cultural strategy? "Big soul" can and should become a strategy, the "spring roll" in the platter of international art. It should be stuffed with "big soul" instead of boring "political pop" and "puppyism". To show people the cultural symbols of China's backwardness and ignorance in a certain historical stage (such as some political symbols in the "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution"), is it reflection? Is it criticism? Is it ridicule? Or is it to cater to Western colonialists? Psychology? The mentality of avant-garde artists is probably complicated. Putting oneself in the position of being "seen" is itself a manifestation of lack of confidence in local culture. The cultural symbols in Chinese conceptual art should embody Chinese cultural connotations and artistic spirit, and should embody China’s “big soul.” This is the cultural strategy for Chinese conceptual art to move toward the international stage. There is still a long way to go for Chinese conceptual art to truly get rid of Westerners' "being seen".

To sum up, conceptual art is not concerned with materials and forms, but the concepts and meanings behind them. Conceptual art is an exploration of art and an exploratory art. It opens up new areas of art, expands our artistic horizons, and enriches the language of artistic expression. Conceptual art is not a style, nor can it be limited to a narrow historical period. It is a tradition based on a critical spirit, although the use of the word "tradition" is somewhat contradictory, since a large amount of conceptual art objects to the very idea of ??tradition.

Whether it is a criticism of real life, history or traditional ways of thinking, conceptual art manifests itself as a post-modern and ironic comedic mentality. The emergence of a new art type must have its inevitability. What kind of cultural strategy should Chinese conceptual art choose in order to truly enter the international art stage? This is worthy of further study.