George Brecht, born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil. He was a key member of, and influence on, Fluxus, the international group of avant-garde artists centred on George Maciunas, having been involved with the group from the first performances in Wiesbaden 1962 until Maciunas' death in 1978.
1964 portrait by George Maciunas
Koan, from the Toward Events Exhibition, Reuben Gallery, NY, 1959. (The wallpaper belongs to the gallery, not the artwork.)
Void Stone, 1987, Arp-Museum, Rolandseck
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work are prioritized equally to or more than traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions. This method was fundamental to American artist Sol LeWitt's definition of conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.
Detail, Memorial for the Victims of Nazi Military Justice by monumental sculptor Olaf Nicolai, Ballhausplatz, Vienna
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz
Art & Language, Art-Language Vol. 3 Nr. 1, 1974
Lawrence Weiner. Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005.