I came upon this paragraph in Holland Carter’s Ana Mendieta review in today’s New York Times, and somehow it brought me back to my previous post on the show at Vox Populi (Try New York Times username lrrfartblog, password artblog):
“Theoretically, by eliminating original objects and replacing them with documentation, Conceptualism undermined conventional values attached to art and the institutions that exist to embalm it. In the process, it redefined art as multiple and fluid, not singular and monumental. And by allowing art its commonplace mortality, Conceptualism actually liberated it from time, permitting it to circulate in new forms endlessly into the future. (The art industry, meanwhile, in a counterrevolutionary move, turned documents into valuable objects.)”
(Shown, untitled documentation from Mendieta’s “Body Tracks”).
