A ten-day performance series at the 69th Regiment Armory brought together New York–based artists and engineers to experiment with new technologies in live works. It modeled a collaborative, research-like approach that later Conceptual artists would use to treat art as an idea, system, or set of instructions rather than a single object.
Sol LeWitt’s essay "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" argued that the idea is the most important part of the work, and that execution can be secondary. This helped give Conceptual Art a clear, widely circulated statement in a major art magazine read by New York’s artists, critics, and curators.
Dwan Gallery’s exhibition "Language to be looked at and/or things to be read" helped set a template for language-based art: text could be the artwork, not just an explanation. By placing writing, reading, and meaning-making at the center, it strengthened a key Conceptual Art strategy that would soon spread across New York’s galleries and publications.
In "The Dematerialization of Art," Lucy R. Lippard and John Chandler described a shift toward art that prioritized ideas, information, and processes over traditional objects. The term gave critics and artists a shared way to talk about why so many New York works were becoming text-based, temporary, or document-centered.
Robert Morris’s Artforum essay "Anti-Form" argued for work where process and material behavior (like gravity) could determine form, rather than fixed design. In New York, this pushed artists toward actions, installations, and changeable arrangements—methods that overlapped with Conceptual Art’s move away from the finished object.
Seth Siegelaub and Jack Wendler published the Xerox Book as an exhibition in book form, using ordinary copying and printing to circulate works. This project showed how Conceptual Art in New York could bypass traditional display and treat publication, distribution, and reproducibility as core parts of the artwork.
Robert Morris curated "9 at Leo Castelli" in the Castelli Warehouse, presenting work by artists including Eva Hesse and Richard Serra. The show highlighted unstable materials and open-ended setups, encouraging a view of art as an evolving situation—an important bridge between Minimal forms and Conceptual strategies in New York.
The Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC) formed in New York to press museums—especially MoMA—for changes in governance, representation, and ethics. Its actions connected Conceptual Art’s interest in institutions and information to concrete demands about labor, politics, and who gets included in museum culture.
This project treated the exhibition catalogue and the installation as tightly linked: the show served as a guide to a publication, and artists contributed statements and proposals as key content. It helped establish a New York model of Conceptual Art where documentation and printed formats could function as the primary site of the work.
At the Castelli Warehouse, Robert Morris presented "Continuous Project Altered Daily" as a work designed to change over time rather than settle into a final form. It strengthened the New York shift toward art as ongoing process, where meaning can depend on repeated revisions and the conditions of display.
MoMA’s international survey exhibition "Information" presented Conceptual and related practices to a large public audience in New York. By framing these works as a major contemporary movement, it both validated and challenged museum norms—especially as artists used the exhibition to test how institutions handle politics, data, and critique.
"Software—Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art" at the Jewish Museum in New York linked Conceptual practices to information technology and the idea of programs or instructions. It encouraged viewers and critics to treat artworks as systems that can be executed, updated, or interacted with, not only as physical objects.
The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement proposed a standardized contract to protect artists’ economic and control interests after a work is sold, including resale royalty ideas. It reflected how New York Conceptual Art’s critique of institutions and markets could also take practical, legal form.
Lucy R. Lippard’s book "Six Years" documented Conceptual Art as a dense web of shows, texts, and projects, organized as an annotated chronology. By turning a recent, fast-moving New York–centered moment into a reference record, it helped define the period as a distinct historical phase and shaped how Conceptual Art would be studied afterward.
Conceptual Art in New York (1965–1975)