Conceptual art marks a major turning point in late twentieth-century art. An art of ideas which can be written, published, performed, fabricated, or which can simply remain inside your head, it is also an art of questions. Since its emergence in the mid 1960s, it has challenged our precepts about not only art but society, politics and the media. An international movement, conceptual art encompasses not only North America and Western Europe but also South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, China and Japan. Its legacy is global, ranging from small local participatory projects to large-scale installations at major museums and biennales.

This comprehensive volume combines in one book an authoritative survey essay by philosopher and art historian Peter Osborne, tracing conceptual art`s origins in Europe, Japan and the USA, its development throughout the 1960s and 1970s and its legacy in contemporary art, a Works section documenting the key works, divided usefully into six distinctive types of conceptual art, and a documents section including texts by philosophers and writers who crucially influenced the movement, alongside key original texts by artists, critics and art historians.