One and Five Ideas

Terry Smith (born 1944) is an Australian theorist, critic, and curator of contemporary art, a former member of the Art & Language collective that was at the origins of Western conceptualism. The five essays collected in this book, preceded by... a substantial introduction by the editor, were written during the period from 1972 to 2012 and are dedicated to the nature of conceptual art and conceptualism, examined in theoretical, philosophical, ideological, geographical, and artistic aspects. Smith presents five approaches and five facets of this art in historical dynamics, looking at it from both the inside (as a participant in the group of conceptualists) and the outside (from the position of critique, philosophy, other variants of conceptualism, etc.) while discussing its role as a mediator between late modernism and contemporary art.