Conceptual art is not new but with Marina Abramovich’s
retrospective shortly opening at the Royal Academy and appetite
from institutions and the market alike, it’s time to take a
look at one of the key problems it presents: valuation. We aim to
dispel the myth that conceptual art is impossible to value by
looking at how it can be valued by experts and why it is important
to pro-actively assemble as much information on a piece and its
artist as possible.
What is conceptual art?
Conceptual art emerged in the 1960s and solidified as a movement
in the 1970s across the US, the UK and Italy with artists such as
Yoko Ono, John Latham and Piero Manzoni. Its most defining
characteristic is that the idea or the concept of the work becomes
its most important aspect. While the performance or its assembly
may be ephemeral it is the thought-process prior to its execution
that truly matters.
