Post-conceptual,
Postconceptual,
Post-conceptualism or
Postconceptualism is an
art theory that builds upon the legacy of
conceptual art in
contemporary art, where the
concept(s) or
idea(s) involved in the work takes some precedence over traditional
aesthetic and material concerns. The term first came into art school parlance through the influence of
John Baldessari at the
California Institute of the Arts in the early 1970s. The writer eldritch Priest, specifically ties John Baldessari's piece
Throwing four balls in the air to get a square (best of 36 tries) from 1973 (in which the artist attempted to do just that, photographing the results, and eventually selecting the best out of 36 tries, with 36 being the determining number as that is the standard number of shots on a roll of
35mm film) as an early example of post-conceptual art. It is now often connected to
generative art and
digital art production.