The Beauty of Doing: Remarks on the Appreciation of Conceptual Art

In this paper I consider the relationship between beauty and conceptual art, evaluating the idea of the dematerialisation of the artistic object and the increase of expressiveness that conceptualists can achieve by using materials to convey ideas and/or actions. My aim is indeed to show that the beauty of conceptual art is the beauty of what artists do, and that our first reference to appreciate it is exactly the materials they use. After presenting the relationship between conceptual art and...

Tensional Creation: Luciano Fabro's Sculpture between Conceptualism and Abstraction

Abstraction in art coincides with at least two different ways of working on forms: their geometrical structuring, and their expansion up to the formless. A third way reveals the close relation between abstraction and conceptualism in art, being contaminated by the reduction of forms, the expression of ideas, and the development of creative processes. The poetics of Italian artist Luciano Fabro, in his words and works, is a considerable example of this last way to create abstract works. The au...

The Globalist Dimension of Art: Wang Guangyi and Transculturalism

The Sides of Limit and the Possibilities for Artistic Creation: On the Influence of Wittgenstein's Philosophy on Contemporary Art

The paper addresses the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy on contemporary art. The presented hypothesis highlights two teachings in particular that can be drawn from Wittgenstein’s philosophy: one is linked to the work of investigation and analysis that aims at clarifying the dimensions and the essence of an object of investigation; the other concerns the identification of the limit and the relationship with the possibility of overcoming it. Both teachings are dealt with consideri...