Conceptual art is art where the ideas or concepts behind the work take precedent over the actual aesthetics of the work. Conceptual art "is what it is". Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was a French American who was very playful. He challenged conventional art by taking a urinal and putting it in a gallery and named it "Fountain". He questioned how we looked at art, he made us realize its not what the artist makes but how the audience responds. His work reeked havoc. "Fountain" was meant to taunt his avant-guard peers.
In conceptual art the actual "skill" of the artist gets murky due to the fact that you are looking past the aesthetics and looking for the meaning behind the art. This in turn questions the idea of materials, and how can texture add to material of the painting. The viewer of the art creates your own answer to the artwork, its personal due to the fact that we have our own criteria and taste.
Fun facts about Marcel Duchamp- For about a decade, he stopped making art to live out his lifelong passion of chess. He achieved tournament status.
“The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem... I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.”-Marcel Duchamp
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